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^J

1

^1 CARTHAGE ^^^^M
THE CARTHAGINIANS ^H

^^^ B. BOSWORTH SMITH ^^^K

■ ^ 1

l^^l

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CARTHAGE

AND

THE CARTHAGINIANS

LONDON : PKINTBD BY

SVOTTISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

CARTHAGE

AND

THE CARTHAGINIANS

BY

R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A.

ASSISTANT-MASTER IN HARROW SCHOOL : FORMERLY FELLOW OF

TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
AUTHOR OF 'MOHAMMED AND M0HAMMF.DAN1SM '

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1878

A// rights reserved

CCI . i . lol.

i-

MATRI MEiE,

CUJUS NOMEN VIViE

HUIC OPUSCULO PRiETEXI DEBUERAT,

QUOD MATERNO AMORE INCEPTUM FOVEBAT

MORTUiE PERACTUM

AMANTISSIMUS DEDICO

PREFACE.

The pages which follow are an attempt, within mo-
derate limits, but from a careful study of all the
materials which have come down to us, to give as
complete a picture as possible of ancient Carthage
and of her two greatest citizens, the only two of
whom we have any minute or personal knowledge,
Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal. The materials them-
selves are extremely fragmentary. The medium
through which they are presented to us is distorted,
and I am only too conscious of my own want of skill
in handling them ; but, whatever the deficiency of the
materials and whatever my own shortcomings, I can-
not help feeling that I have worked to ill effect if I
have failed to awaken in the minds of my readers
something of that enthusiasm for the subject, and
that keen desire to pursue it further, which for some
years past has made the labour I have imposed upon
myself a labour of love.

Whether any such enthusiasm or desire can ever
be adequately gratified is a different question, and

viii PREFACE.

one which I venture to think does not necessarily
affect its intrinsic value. In history, as in other pur-
suits — more especially, perhaps, in those branches of
history in which the present age has made such rapid
advances, the study of long-buried seats of empire, of
extinct creeds, and of vanished civilisations — the chase
is, in a certain sense, worth more than the game and
the effort than the result. If by such studies — by the
endeavour to picture to ourselves whole races which
have long since disappeared, and altars which have long
been overturned — the imagination, as we cannot doubt,
is awakened and the sympathies enlarged ; if we are
driven to take a wider and therefore a truer view of
the dealings of God with man, to recognise more
frankly amidst the endless diversities of the human
race its fundamental and substantial unity ; to press
more closely home to ourselves those questions which
are never old and never new — questions always to be
asked and never adequately to be answered — of the
Why and the What, the Whence and the Whither of
a being who has such grovelling desires and such
noble aspirations, whose capacities are so boundless
and whose performances are so sorry, who is so great
and yet so little, so evanescent and yet so lasting —
we may well rest content if we rise from the attempt
with a feeling of stimulus rather than of satiety, of
unrest rather than repose.

It is possible, indeed, that more extensive excava-

PREFACE. ix

tions on the site of the Byrsa and its neighbourhood
may hereafter prove that the Romans did not com-
plete their work of destruction so thoroughly as they
imagined, and that the very rapidity with which they
endeavoured to carry out old Cato's resolve — destroy-
ing everything at Carthage which they could see —
was the means of preserving something at least which
they did not see. It is possible that the further dis-
covery of Phoenician inscriptions among the numerous
islands and coasts over which the influence of that
ubiquitous people once extended may increase our
knowledge of the Carthaginian language, and may
give us a longer list of Carthaginian proper names.
It is possible that Marseilles may contain other tablets
like that famous one discovered in 1845, when ^ house
was being pulled down — a tablet which actually fixes
the tariff of prices to be paid for the victims offered
to Baal — and that the recesses of the Lebanon may
still conceal another priceless remnant of Phoenician
antiquity, such as that statue of Baal in a sitting
posture, which perished only a few years ago, just be-
fore a great Phoenician scholar arrived in the country,
and by a cruel fate which is not without precedent
in such matters, heard at the same moment of its
existence and destruction. If so, we may one day
be able to picture to ourselves more vividly that
worship of Baal and of Ashtoreth which is as in-
teresting to the student of Biblical as of Carthagi-

PREFACE.

nian history. It is possible, once more, that some
of the lost books, or fragments of the lost books, of
the Greek and Roman historians who treated of Car-
thage may yet be discovered, and may complete the
picture, such as it is, which the Greek colonists in
Sicily, or the Romans who had tested for themselves
the indomitable patience of Hamilcar, and had felt the
weight of Hannibal's arm, were able to form of their
redoubtable antagonist.

All these things are possible, even if they are not
very probable. But we cannot venture to hope that
any such discoveries, whatever their kind or number,
will ever enable us to know Carthage, as we know
Athens or Rome, from its own citizens ; or will do
more than throw a few scattered lights upon that
imperial city which — all but unknown to us during
five centuries of her growth and her true grandeur
— blazes forth into the light of day only in that
century which witnessed her heroic struggles and
her fall.

The historical documents which might have thrown
a real light upon Carthage have perished irrevocably.
Philinus, the Greek of Agrigentum, who wrote a
Carthaginian, or quasi-Carthaginian, account of the
First Punic War, we know only from some criticisms
of Polybius. Sosilus and Silanus, two other Greek
historians, who, if only they had been worthy of their
opportunities, might have given us from their daily

PREFACE. xi

personal observation as complete an account of Han-
nibal's life and conversation as Boswell has given us
of Dr. Johnson, have left behind them not a word ;
and the contents of the native Carthaginian libraries,
which the Romans, like rich men who know not what
tiiey give, carelessly handed over to the tender mer-
cies of Numidian chieftains, and which Sallust, a cen-
tury afterwards, must have had in his own hands,
have perished by a destruction as complete as that
which overtook the Alexandrian library itself. We
cannot pretend to contemplate the fate of these Car-
thaginian libraries with the philosophic indifference
which it pleased Gibbon to affect with regard to that
of Alexandria ; for we cannot suppose that the de-
struction of the Punic literature was in any way a
benefit, or that its preservation would have been any-
thing but of deep interest and value to posterity.
^ A few words of explanation as to the general
treatment of my subject, and the comparative promi-
nence which I have allotted to its different parts, may,
perhaps not unfitly, find a place here.

As regards the method of inquiry, I have in all
cases gone direct to the fountain-head, reading care-
fully every passage which has come down to us from
the ancients, comparing conflicting statements with
each other, and always endeavouring in the first in-
stance to form an independent judgment upon them.
On points which seemed in any degree doubtful I

xii PREFACE.

have afterwards consulted the chief modern writers
on the subject, such as Gesenius, Heeren, Niebuhr,
Arnold, Movers, Kenrick, Lenormant, Mommsen,
Beul6, and Ihne. Where, as is often the* case, I am
conscious of any distinct debt to these or any other
modern writer, I have of course made it matter of
special acknowledgment in the notes ; but, as a general
rule, the references I have given are to those to whom
I really owe them — to the ancient authorities them-
selves.

I have avoided all prolonged discussion of dis-
puted points, such, for instance, as the route of Hannibal
over the Alps, the battle-field of the Trebia, the mi-
nutiae of the topography of ancient Carthage, or the
exact position of its Spanish namesake. On such
subjects I have endeavoured to weigh the arguments
on either side, and have often, as in the case of the
passage of the Alps, waded through what is, in fact,
a literature in itself, a very sea of treatises and re-
joinders, of observations and counter-observations ;
but have been compelled to content myself with
giving, in a few lines, the results themselves rather
than the process by which I have arrived at them.
The limits of the book make any other treatment
impossible ; and, indeed, it seems to me that the
minute discussion of such points belongs to a con-
tinuous history, or to a series of monographs, rather
than to a book which is not intended to be exhaustive,

PREFACE. xiii

and which is addressed as much to the general reader
as to the classical scholar.

As regards the treatment of particular parts of
my subject, in the two opening chapters on Carthage I
have attempted to give a general sketch of the Cartha-
ginian influence and civilisation, and to bring together
into as small a compass as is consistent with any de-
gree of accuracy or completeness, all the hints dropped
by the writers of antiquity which seem to throw any
clear light on the city in the days of its birth, its
growth, and its greatest prosperity.

In the third chapter it has been my object to set
forth the main differences between Carthage and her
great rival, and to point out the foundations on which
the achievements and greatness of Rome principally
rested. It is the more necessary to do this pointedly
at the outset, because, since Carthage can no longer
be heard in her own defence, the historian is bound,
throughout his treatment of the Punic Wars, con-
tinually to point out those statements which he con-
siders to be coloured by the bias or the ignorance, by
the fears or the pride, of the Roman writers. He is
thus driven sometimes to appear as the advocate, while
he is, in fact, only acting or wishing to act the part of
the judge. That Rome was better fitted for empire
than Carthage, and that her victory is, on the whole,
with all its drawbacks, the victory of progress and
civilisation, is a fact to which all history seems to

xiv PREFACB^

point ; but it is none the less the duty of the historian
to dwell upon these drawbacks, and to bring into full
relief what little may be said on the other side.

The history of the First Punic War I have treated
at considerable— perhaps some of my readers may
think at disproportionate — length. I have more than
one reason for doing so. To begin with, the first
Punic War seems to me to throw much more light on
the energies and character of the Carthaginians as a
whole than does the Second. The Second Punic
War brings Hannibal before us ; the First the State
which produced him. The First Punic War shows us
Carthage as still, in some sense, the mistress of the
seas and islands ; in the Second she hardly dares to
show herself on the waters which were so lately all
her own. We have, moreover, throughout the history
of the First Punic War the guidance of Polybius, who
had before him in the preparation of his history the
accounts given by at least two writers who were all
but contemporaries or eye-witnesses of the events
which they described, one of them, strange to say,
not unfavourable to Carthage. Our knowledge, there-
fore, of the First Punic War is more complete than
that of any portion of the Second, unless it be that of
its first three years.

Again, most historians seem to have looked upon
the First Punic War as a dull and tedious war, and
have accordingly been content to give it a very cur-

PREFACE. XV

sory notice. Dr. Arnold, for example, who has dedi-
cated a whole volume to the Second Punic War,
has given only one chapter to the First. There is
no greater mistake — unless indeed it be mine in
hazarding an opposite opinion — than to suppose that
the First Punic War is dull and tedious. In respect
of its battles and its si^es, its surprises and its cata-
strophes, the Herculean exertions made by both States,
and the frightful sacrifices it entailed upon them both ;
above all, in the consummate genius of one at least
of the generals it produced, it seems to me to be one
of the most interesting wars in history. If I have
failed to make it in some measure interesting to my
readers, I repeat that, in my opinion, it is the fault
not of the subject but of the writer.

Once more, the dazzling genius of Hannibal, and
the comparative fulness — not necessarily the trust-
worthiness — of our authorities for his history, have
hitherto tended to throw into the shade the man who,
if he was inferior to Hannibal, was inferior to him
alone, the heroic Hamilcar Barca. In point of ful-
ness of treatment Hamilcar has fared at the hands of
his historians much as has the war in which he bore
so large a part. Dr. Arnold, whose noble history was
cut short by his untimely death when he had only
reached the turning-point in the Hannibalian war, the
fatal battle of the Metaurus, has given four hundred
pages to that much of Hannibal's career alone, while.

xvi PREFACE,

he has given barely twenty to Hamilcar; and Dr.
Mommsen himself, though he is in no way sparing of
his admiration for Hamilcar, has, in point of fulness
of treatment, dealt with the father and the son in a
manner which, as it seems to me, is hardly less dis-
proportionate to their comparative merits and achieve-
ments. It seemed, therefore, desirable to lay rather
less stress on what has been done so fully and so
exhaustively before, and to give more time and space
to what has hitherto, perhaps, received less generous
treatment, and also throws more light on the great
city which is my special subject.

The chapters relating to Hannibal himself, to the
Third Punic War, and to the destruction of Carthage,
speak for themselves. One more chapter only re-
quires special comment here. In the spring of 1877,
after I had finished the first draft of the book, and
was far advanced in its revision, I was enabled to pay
a visit to the site of Carthage and its neighbourhood.
It was a short visit, but was full of deep and varied
interest It was my first sight of an Eastern city,
and it brought me for the first time into direct per-
sonal contact with that vast religious system which is
one of the greatest facts of human history, and which,
from causes deep as human nature itself, seems des-
tined, whatever the upshot of the present Eastern
difficulties, always to maintain its hold on the Eastern
world. I was able several times to visit the site of

PREFACE. xvii

the Phoenician city^ and to study, as far as my limited
time would permit me, oh the spot those questions of
its topography and history with the general bearings
of which I had been so long familiar in books. I
walked round the harbours of Carthage, bathed in
water which half preserves and half conceals its ruins,
explored the Byrsa and the cisterns, traced for many
miles the course of the aqueduct, crossed the river
Bagradas, and examined, amongst other spots re-
nowned in ancient story, the site of the still more
ancient city, the parent city of Utica. In the con-
cluding chapter of this volume I have endeavoured to
gather up some of the impressions which I derived
from these varied sights and scenes ; and I hope I
have been able by these means, as well as by various
touches which I have inserted subsequently in other
portions of the book, to communicate to my readers
what, I think, I gained for myself, a more vivid mental
picture of that ancient city, whose chequered fortunes

I have endeavoured to relate.

I wish to return my hearty thanks to the Rev. Sir
G. W. Cox, Bart., for having carefully revised my
book, both in manuscript and in proof, and for having
made several valuable suggestions.

The Knoll, Harrow :
Nov, 26, 1877.

a 2

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

CARTHAGE.

PAGE

Characteristics of Phoenicians — ^Their defects — Size of their terri-
tory — Their relations to Israelites — Early commerce in Medi-
terranean — Pre-eminence of Phoenicians — Origin of Carthage —
its position and population — its relation to Sicily — Our know-
ledge of Carthage, whence derived — its early history — Rapid
growth of its empire — Its dealings with the Native Africans —
with the Phoenician cities in Africa — with Tyre — with Sicilian
Greeks — Constitution of Carthage — The Suffetes — The Senate
— Deterioration of constitution — The * Hundred ' Judges — Close
oligarchy — General contentment — Social life of Carthaginians —
Their commercial principles — Their agriculture — Merits of
Mago's work on Agriculture — Carthaginian religion — Worship
of Baal-Moloch — of Tanith or Astarte — deeply-rooted character
of this worship — Inferior Divinities — Worship of Melcarth —
Carthaginian literature — The army — The mercenaries and the
Numidian Cavalry — Condition of the masses — Colonisation —
Periplus of Hanno — Periplus of Himilco — * Mago's ' harbour —
Disaffection of subject races — Was Rome or Carthage best
fitted for empire ? i

CHAPTER II.

CARTHAGE AND SICILY.

(735-310 B-c.)

Wars between Carthage and Sicilian Greeks — First appearance of
Greeks in Sicily — Their gradual spread — Battle of Himera —
Second Carthaginian invasion of Sicily — Third invasion and its

XX CONTENTS.

PAGE

incidents — Exploits of Dionysius — Siege of Motye — Fourth in-
vasion — Strange vicissitudes and possible importance of the
conflict — Comparative merits of Greek and Carthaginian rule
in Sicily— Conflicting stories about Hamilcar at Himera— River
Halycus fixed as boundary — Timoleon — Magnificent Cartha-
ginian armament — Battle of Crimesus — Agathocles invades
Afiica and threatens Carthage *•••». 46

CHAPTER III.

CARTHAGE AND ROME.

Rome and Carthage compared — Contrasted — Origin and growth of
Rome — Constitutional progress — Military progress — Conquest
of Etruscans — of Gauls — of Latins, B.C. 390— of Samnites —
Roman methods in war — War with Pyrrhus — Rome brought
face to face with Carthage 60

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST PUNIC WAR.
MESS ANA AND AGRIGENTUM.

(264-262 B.C.)

Relations of Sicily to Carthage and Rome — Appeal of Mamertines
for aid — ^The question at issue — Importance of the decision —
Romans occupy Messana — They attack Sjnracuse — Results of
first campaign — Romans ally themselves with Hiero — Cartha-
ginians unprepared for war — Agrigentum — Its siege — Its fate , 70

CHAPTER V.

FIRST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYLiE AND ECNOMUS.

(262-256 B.C.)

Carthaginian naval supremacy — Roman naval affairs— Commer-
cial treaties with Carthage — Difficulties of Romans — Want of
ships of war — Want of sailors —The new fleet — its first ventures
— Naval science and tactics of the Ancients — The Corvus —

CONTENTS. xxi

PACE

Battle of Mylae — Honours paid to Duillius — Egesta — The
Romans attack Sardinia and Corsica — Energy of Carthaginians —
Romans resolve to invade Africa — Enormous naval armaments
— Route taken by the Romans — order of battle — Battle of
Ecnomus .«.....•.. 84

CHAPTER VI.

INVASION OF AFRICA. REGULUS AND XANTHIPPUS.

(256-250 B.C.)

Invasion of Africa — Romans overrun Carthaginian territory —
Shortsightedness of Carthaginians — Changes necessary in Roman
military system — Recall of Manlius — Victory of Regulus —
Desperate plight of Carthaginians — Terms of peace rejected —
Arrival of Xanthippus — He is given the command — His great
victory near Adis — ^Joy of Carthaginians — Thank-offerings to
Moloch — Departure of Xanthippus — The survivors at Cl)rpea —
Roman fleet destroyed in a storm — Carthaginian reinforcements
for Sicily — Romans build a new fleet — Take Panormus — Second
Roman fleet destroyed in a storm — Carthaginians threaten
Panormus — Romans build a third fleet — Battle of Panormus —
Part played by elephants in first Punic War — Story of embassy
and death of Regulus — How far true ?..... 106

CHAPTER VII.

HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE SIEGE OF LILYBiEUM.

(250-241 B.C.)

Fortresses remaining to Carthaginians in Sicily — Siege of Lily-
baeum — Its origin and situation — Early siege operations —
Carthaginians run the blockade — Hannibal the Rhodian — Car-
thaginian sortie — Distress of Romans — The Consul Claudius —
Battle of Drepanum — Claudian family — Roman reinforcements
for siege of Lilybaeum lost at sea — Romans seize Erjrx — Hamil*
car Barca — He occupies Mount Ercte — Exhaustion of Romans —
Culpable conduct of Carthaginians — Genius of Hamilcar — His

xxii CONTENTS,

PAGE

plans — His enterprises — He transfers his camp from Ercte to
Eryx — Romans build one more fleet — Lutatius Catulus — The
Carthaginian plan — Battle of -^gatian Isles — Magnanimity of
Hamilcar — Terms of peace — Roman gains and losses — Car-
thaginian losses and prospects — Contest only deferred . • ^33

CHAPTER VIII.

HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE MERCENARY WAR.

(241-238 B.C.)

Events between First and Second Punic War — Significance of
Mercenary War — Weakness of Carthaginian Government —
Symptoms of mutiny — Revolt of mercenaries and native Africans
— Hanno and Hamilcar Barca — The Truceless War — Its
atrocities and termination 1 61

CHAPTER IX.

HAMILCAR BARCA IN AFRICA AND SPAIN.

(238-219 B.C.)

Conduct of Romans during Mercenary War — They appropriate
Sardinia and Corsica — Peace and war parties at Carthage —
Hamilcar's command — He crosses to Spain — Advantages of his
position there — His administration and death — His character —
Administration of Hasdrubal — New Carthage founded — Early
career of Hannibal — Remissness of Romans — Rising of Gauls in
Italy — Its suppression — Hannibal besieges Saguntum — War
declared between Rome and Carthage 172

CHAPTER X.

SECOND PUNIC WAR.
(2l8~20I B.C.)

PASSAGE OF THE RHONE AND THE ALPS, B.C. 218.

Preparations of Hannibal — He determines to go by land — Numbers
of his army — His march through Gaul— His passage of the
Rhone — Vagueness of ancient writers in ge<^japhical matters —

CONTENTS. xxiii

PAGE

Passage over Alps selected by Hannibal — Route by which he
approached it — The first ascent— Valley of the Is^e — The main
ascent — The summit — Hannibal addresses his troops — The
descent — Interest attaching to the passage of the Alps — Its cost
and results — The * War of Hannibal * 192

CHAPTER XI.

BATTLES OF TREBIA AND TRASIMENE.
(218-217 B.C.)

P. Scipio returns from Italy to Gaul — Sempronius recalled from
Sicily — Battle of the Ticinus — Hannibal crosses the Po — He is
joined by the Gauls — Retreat of Scipio to the Trebia — Hannibal
selects his ground and time — Battle of the Trebia — Results of
the victory — Hannibal crosses the Apennines — The marshes of
the Amo — Position of the Roman armies — Flaminius and his
antecedents — Despondency at Rome — Resolution of Flaminius
— He follows Hannibal from Arretium — Livy and Polybius com-
pared — Position chosen by Hannibal — Battle of the Trasimene
lake — Death of Flaminius 213

CHAPTER XJI.

HANNIBAL OVERRUNS CENTRAL ITALY.
(217-216 B.C.)

News of the Trasimene defeat reaches Rome — Measures of the
Roman Senate — Hannibal marches into Picenum — Sends
despatches to Carthage — He arms his troops in the Roman
fashion — Advance of the Dictator Fabius — His policy — Discon-
tent of his troops — Hannibal ravages Samnium and Campania —
Beauty and wealth of Campania — Continued inaction of Fabius
— He tries to entrap Hannibal but fails — Minucius left in com-
mand — is raised to equal rank with Fabius — is saved from
disaster by him — Services of Fabius to Rome .... 234

xxiv CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIIL

BATTLE OF CANNiE. CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL.

(2l6 B.C.)

PAGE

Energy and spirit of the Romans — The rival armies face each other
at Cannae — Nature of the ground — The double command of
^milius PauUus and Varro — Anxiety at Rome — Dispositions of
Hannibal for the battle — Battle of Cannae — Number of the slain
— Panic at Rome— Measures of the Senate — Course of the war
— Was Hannibal right or wrong in not advancing on Rome
now? — Greatness of Hannibal and of Rome — Character and
genius of Hannibal — his ascending series of successes — his in-
fluence over men — Sources of our knowledge of him — Charges
against him — Roman feeling towards him — Change in character
of war after Cannae — Polybius and Silenus .... 249

CHAPTER XIV.

REVOLT OF CAPUA. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE.

(216-212 B.C.)

Capua revolts — Marcellus — Hannibal winters at Capua — Latin
colonies still true to Rome — Great exertions of Rome — Hannibal
negotiates with Sjrracuse, Sardinia, and Macedon — His position
at Tifeta — Fabius and Marcellus Consuls — The tide turns against
Hannibal — He gains possession of Tarentum — ^The war in Sicily
— Importance of Syracuse — Its siege and capture — Its fate . 275

CHAPTER XV.

SIEGE OF CAPUA AND HANNIBAL's MARCH ON ROME.

(212-208 B.C.)

Importance of war in Spain — Successes and death of the two Scipios
— Renewed activity of Hannibal — Siege of Capua — Hannibal
attempts to relieve it — His march on Rome — Fate of Capua —
Continued superiority of Hannibal in the field — Death of Mar-
cellus— Influence of family traditions at Rome — Patriotism of
Romans—Latin colonies show symptoms of exhaustion . .291

CONTENTS. XXV

CHAPTER XVI.

BATTLE OF THE METAURUS.
(207 B.C.)

PAGE

The approach of Hasdrubal from Spain — His messengers fail to
find Hannibal — Brilliant march of Nero— Battle of the Metaurus
— Triumph and brutality of Nero » 309

CHAPTER XVII.

p. CORNELIUS SCIPIO.

{210-206 B.C.)

Scipio in Spain — His early history — His character and influence
— Made proconsul — Takes New Carthage — Carthaginians finally
driven out of Spain 316

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WAR IN AFRICA \ BATTLE OF ZAMA.

(206-202 B.C.)

Scipio returns to Rome and is elected Consul — Receives leave to
invade Africa — Goes to Sicily — His doings and difiiculties there
— Sails for Africa — Massinissa and Syphax — Roman ignorance
of Carthage — The fall of Carthage, how far a matter of regret —
Si^e of Utica — Scipio*s command prolonged — He bums the
Carthaginian camps — Sophonisba — The Carthaginian peace
party — ^n^ of Hamilcar recalled to Africa — Mago obeys the
simimons — ^^Hannibal obeys it — The Lacinian column — ^Joy in
Italy — First operations of Hannibal in Africa — Battle of Zama—
Dignity ot Hannibal — Terms of peace — Results of the war —
Alternative policies open to Rome 326

xxvi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIX.

CARTHAGE AT THE MERCY OF ROME.
(201-150 B.C.)

PAGE

Deterioration of Roman character — Condition of Italy — Condition
of Rome — Condition of Roman provinces — Story of Lucius
Flamininus— Story of Sergius Galba — Rapid conquest of the
East — State of Eastern world— Summary of Roman conquests
in the East — Reforms introduced by Hannibal at Carthage —
Romans demand his surrender — His exile and wanderings — His
schemes, his sufferings and his death — Roman fear and hatred
of him — Credibility of the anecdotes about him — Humour of
Hannibal — ^Anecdotes of him while at court of Antiochus and
during his wandering life — He founds Artaxata and Prusa — His
personal characteristics — Death of Scipio — Treatment of Car-
thage by Romans and Massinissa 356

CHAPTER XX.

DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.
(149-146 B.C.)

Appian and his History — Polybius — Characteristics of his History
— His love of truth — Topography of Carthage — Causes of its
obscurity — Changes made by Nature — Changes made by Man —
The peninsula and the isthmus — The fortifications and triple
wall — The Taenia — The harbours — Resolve of Rome respecting
Carthage — ^Treachery of Romans — Scene at Utica — Scene at
Carthage — ^The Roman attack fails — Repeated failures and
losses — Scipio iEmilianus — His character and connections — He
takes the Megara — Siege of the city proper — Scipio's mole and
the new outlet — Contradictions in Carthaginian character —
Scipio attacks the harbour quarter — He takes Nepheris — The
final assault — The three streets— The Byrsa — Fate of the city
and its inhabitants — Curse of Scipio — Unique character of the
fall of Carthage — Its consequences — Subsequent cities on its site
— Final destruction by the Arabs 379

CONTENTS. xxvu

CHAPTER XXI.

CARTHAGE AS IT IS.

PACB

Interest of a visit to Carthage — Nature of impressions thence de-
rived — Its topography — First view disappointing — ^The Goletta
and the Taenia — Djebel Khawi and the Necropolis — Vicissitudes
of its history — Its treatment by the Romans — Sanctity of burying
place among Semitic races — Ras Sidi Bu Said and its sanctity —
St. Louis a Muslim saint — Scene of misadventure of Mancinus
— His picture of Carthage — Hill of St. Louis the ancient Byrsa
— Description of Byrsa — Gulf of Tunis and Peninsula of the
Dakhla— Lake of Tunis and Plain of Cartht^ — The aqueduct,
its character, history, and appearance — Utica — Obliteration of
Punic City — The * smaller cisterns * — Are they Punic or
Roman? — ^The laiger cisterns — Debris of four cities — Excava-
tions of Dr. Davis — Excavations of M. Beule — Remains of triple
wall and traces of final conflagration — Catapult bolts — Remains
of ancient harbours — Buildings beneath the sea — Oriental
character of Tunis — Strange mixture of races — Streets of Tunis
— Sights of Tunis — The neighbourhood of Tunis — Patriarchal
life — Characteristics of the Arab — His unchangeableness — Con-
clusion ... 409

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, ^ PLANS,

Remains of Ancient Harbours at Carthage . Frontispiece

The Smaller Cisterns at Carthage

. . to face p. I

Phcenician Colonies and Carthaginian Empire

Sicily

Battle of Ecnomus

Italy

Battle of Trebia

Battle of Trasimene

Battle of Cannjb .

Carthage and its Neighbourhood .

Plan of Harbours at Carthage .

14
70

102
192
220
230
256
382
386

CARTHAGE

AND

THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER I.

CARTHAGE.

Characteristics of Phoenicians — Their defects —Size of their territory —
Their relations to Israelites — Early commerce in Mediterranean —
Pre-eminence of Phoenicians — Origin of Carthage — its position and
population — its relation to Sicily — Our knowledge of Carthage,
whence derived — its Early History — Rapid growth of its empire
— Its dealings with the Native Africans — with the Phoenician cities
in Africa — with Tyre — with Sicilian Greeks — Constitution of Car-
thage — The Suffetes — The Senate — Deterioration of constitution —
The * Hundred ' Judges — Close oligarchy— General contentment —
Social life of Carthaginians — ITieir commercial principles — Their
agriculture — Merits of Mago*s work on Agriculture— Carthaginian
religion — Worship of Baal-Moloch — of Tanith or Astarte — deeply-
rooted character of this worship — Inferior Divinities — Worship
of Melcarth — Carthaginian literature — The army — The merce-
naries and the Numidian Cavalry — Condition of the masses— Co-
lonisation — Periplus of Hanno — Periplus of Himilco — *Mago's'
harbour — Disaffection of subject races— Was Rome or Carthage
best fitted for empire ?

It was well for the development and civilisation of
the ancient world that the Hebrew fugitives from
u-^ B

2 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Egypt were not able to drive at once from the whole
coast of Syria its old inhabitants ; for the accursed race
of the Canaanites whom, for their licentious worship
and cruel rites, they were bidden to extirpate from
Palestine itself, were no other than those enterprising
mariners and those dauntless colonists who, sallying
from their narrow roadsteads, committed their fragile
barks to the mercy of unknown seas, and, under their
Greek name of Phoenicians, explored island and pro-
montory, creek and bay, from the coast of Malabar
even to the lagunes of the Baltic. From Tyre and
Sidon issued those busy merchants who carried, with
their wares, to distant shores the rudiments of science
and of many practical arts which they had obtained
from the far East, and which, probably, they but half
understood themselves. It was they who, at a period
antecedent to all contemporary historical records, in-
troduced written characters, the foundation of all high
intellectual development, into that country which was
destined to carry intellectual and artistic culture to the
highest point which humanity has yet reached. It was
they who learned to steer their ships by the sure help
of the Polar Star,^ while the Greeks still depended on
the Great Bear ; it was they who rounded the Cape
of Storms, and earned the best right to call it the
Cape of Good Hope, 2,000 years before Vasco de
Gama.* Their ships returned to their native shores
bringing with them sandal wood from Malabar, spices
from Arabia, fine linen from Egypt, ostrich plumes
from the Sahara. Cyprus gave them its copper, Elba
its iron, the coast of the Black Sea its manufactured

* Ovid, Fasti^ iii. 107 ; Tristiay iv. 3. i. * Herod, iv. 42.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PHCENICIANS, 3

Steel. Sliver they brought from Spain, gold from the
Niger, tin from the Scilly Isles, and amber from the
Baltic. Where they sailed, there they planted factories
which opened a caravan trade with the interior of vast
continents hitherto regarded as inaccessible, and which
became inaccessible for centuries again when the
Phoenicians disappeared from history. They were as
famous for their artistic skill as for their enterprise and
energy. In the Iliad and the Odyssey — the best
picture, next after the Book of Genesis, of the * youth of
the world ' which has come down to us — the finest em-
broideries, the most costly robes, the most exquisitely
chased wine bowls, are of Sidonian workmanship.
Indeed, to say in Homeric times that a thing was a
work of fine art at all was almost equivalent to saying
that it was Phcenician.^ Did the greatest of the Jewish
kings desire to adorn the Temple which he had erected
to the Most High in the manner least unworthy of Him }
A Phoenician king must supply him with the well-
hewn cedars of his stately Lebanon, and the cunning
hand of a Phoenician artisan must shape the pillars
and the lavers, the oxen and the lions of brass, which
decorated the shrine. * Thou knowest that there is
not among us any that hath skill to hew timber like
unto the Sidonians/ ^ Did the King of Persia himself,
in the intoxication of his pride, command miracles to
be performed, boisterous straits to be bridged, or a
peninsula to become an island "^ It was Phoenician
architects who lashed together the boats that were to

> Cf. Homer, Odyssey ^ iv. 613-619 ; xv. I15-I19 ; Iliad^ vi. 289-
291 ; xxiii. 743, ^tSiJvej iroXvSalSoAoi.

* I Kings V. 6 ; cf. Homer, Od. xv. 425, 'S^^Stvos voXvxihKov,

B 2

4 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

connect Asia with Europe,^ and it was Phoenician
workmen who knew best how to economise their toil
in digging the canal that was to transport the fleet of
Xerxes through dry land, and save it from the
winds and waves of Mount Athos.^ The merchants
of Tyre were, in truth, the princes, and her traffickers
the honourable men, of the earth. Wherever a ship
could penetrate, a factory be planted, a trade de-
veloped or created, there we find these ubiquitous,
these irrepressible Phoenicians.

But the picture is not all bright. The Phoenician
civilisation, brilliant as it was, was narrow and self-
seeking. The spirit of commercial enterprise implies
many individual and many social virtues : self-reliance
and self-control, patience and inventiveness, caution
and daring, the spirit of discipline and the spirit of
progress. But pushed to excess, or unaccompanied by
more elevated impulses, it involves evils which ensure
premature decline. Even in modern times where de-
velopment is necessarily more many-sided than in the
states of antiquity, the exclusively commercial spirit
has, after a brief interval, proved to be inconsistent
w4th the highest national virtues. The history of Por-
tuguese and of Spanish, of Venetian and of Dutch,
commercial enterprise, whether in the Old or New
World, affords lamentable proof of this. The impulse
of discovery, the thirst for knowledge, the spirit of ad-
venture, which originally accompanied the commercial
spirit and lent dignity thereto, are in time swallowed
up by it. Wealth is pursued for its own sake only,
life is maintained at the cost of the greater part of

' Herod, vii, 34. * ibij. 23.

THEIR DEFECTS.

what makes life worth having, and acts of cruelty and
lust, of treachery and ingratitude, are perpetrated to
gratify the ruling passion ; and so, in some measure^
was it with the Phoenicians. They were never cowards,
but they carried the huckstering spirit into all their
dealings. It was easier for them to buy with their
gold than to take or preserve with their swords ; and
as early even as the time of Ezekiel we find them,
like other commercial nations, hiring mercenaries from
Persia and from Ethiopia to fight their battles for
themJ It was not from high moral motives — for
such were almost unknown to the nations of antiquity,
at least in their dealings with each other — but from a
shrewd and calculating policy, that the Phoenicians,
alike of the parent country and of the daughter cities,
so long forbore to aim at foreign conquest or at terri-
torial aggrandisement.

We know well what the tiny territory of Palestine
has done for the religion of the world, and what the
tiny Greece has done for its intellect and its art ; but
we are apt to forget that what the Phoenicians did for
the development and intercommunication of the world
was achieved by a state confined within narrower boun-
daries still. In the days of their greatest prosperity,
when their ships were to be found on every known and
on many unknown seas, the Phoenicians proper of the
Syrian coast remained content with a narrow strip of
fertile territory, squeezed in between the mountains and
the sea, of the length of some thirty miles and of the
average breadth of only a single mile ! And if the

^ Ezekiel xxvii. lo : * They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were
in thine army ; thy men pf war ; they hanged the shield and helmet
on thee ; they set forth thy comeliness.'

6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

existence of a few settlements beyond these limits, as,
for instance, Aradus and Tripolis and Berytus to the
north, and Accho and Dora to the south, entitle us to
extend the name of Phoenicia to some 120 miles of
coast, with a plain behind it which sometimes broad-
ened out into a sweep of a dozen miles, was it not
sound policy, even in a community so enlarged, to
keep for themselves the gold they had so hardly won,
rather than lavish it on foreign mercenaries in the
hope of extending their sway inland, or in the vain
attempt to resist by force of arms the mighty mo-
narchs of Egypt, of Assyria, or of Babylon ? Their
strength was to sit still, to acknowledge the titular
supremacy of anyone who chose to claim it, and then,
when the time came, to buy the intruder off: 'careless
they dwelt, quiet and secure after the manner of the
Zidonians, and had no dealings with any man.'*

One branch of business there was — and a lucrative
one it must have been — which did tempt the Tyrian
merchants occasionally to overstep their natural
boundaries even by land. They were slave traders,
and they did not disdain, on occasion, to traffic in the
persons of their nearest neighbours and their best
friends. Palestine was, throughout the period of the
later Old Testament history, the granary of Tyre, sup-
plying it with com and oil ; and mutual convenience
seems, in spite of the cruelties of Jezebel and the
bloody offerings to Moloch, to have long maintained a
friendly feeling between the adjoining peoples. But in
the time of the Maccabees there is evidence to show
that Tyrian merchants accompanied the armies of

* Judges xviii. *J*

THEIR RELATIONS TO THE ISRAELITES. 7

Syria for the purpose of purchasing the Jews who
should be taken captive in the war ; and when Jerusa-
lem fell before Antiochus Epiphanes the number of
those sold as slaves, doubtless to these same Phoeni-
cian slave merchants, equalled that of the slain.^ To
practices such as these — if, indeed, this may be taken
as a sample — which must have been as revolting to
the patriotism as their impure worship was to the re-
ligious feelings of the Hebrew prophets, are probably
due the unsparing and unqualified denunciations of
Tyre and Sidon which we find in Joel and Amos, in
Isaiah and in Ezekiel. The religion of the Phoenicians
appears to have been Originally a rude worship of
the powers of Nature ; but it is certain that their
worship of Baal, of Astarte, and of Adonis, as we read
of it in the Greek and Roman no less than in the
Hebrew classics, involved abominati» ms of which
human sacrifice was hardly the worst.

The land-locked sea, the eastern extremity of
which washes the shores of Phoenicia proper, connect-
ing as it does three continents, and abounding in deep
gulfs, in fine harbours, and in fertile islands, seems to
have been intended by Nature for the early develop-
ment of commerce and colonisation. By robbing
the ocean of half its mystery and of more than
half its terrors, it allured the timid mariner, even
as the eagle does its young, from headland on to
headland, or from islet to islet, till it became the high-
way of the nations of the ancient world ; and the
products of each of the countries whose shores it
laves became the common property of all. At a

> I Mace. iii. 41 ; 2 Mace. v. 14; cf. also Joel iii. 6 ; Amos i. 9.

8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

very early period the Etruscans, for instance — that
mysterious people who then occupied with their set-
tlements Campania and Cisalpine Gaul, as well as
the extensive region to which they afterwards gave
their name — swept all the Italian seas with their
galleys, half piratical and half commercial. The
Greeks, somewhat later, founded (B.C. 631) Cyrene
and (B.C. 560) Barca in Africa, (B.C. 564) Alalia in
Corsica, and (B.C. 600) Massilia in Gaul, and lined the
southern shores of Italy and the western shores 01
Asia Minor, with that fringe of colonies which were
so soon to eclipse in prosperity and power their
parent cities. Even Egypt, with her immemorial an-
tiquity and her exclusive civilisation, deigned to open
(b.C. 550) an emporium at Naucratis for the ships
and commerce of the Greeks, creatures of yesterday,
as they must have seemed in comparison with her.*

But in this general race of enterprise and com-
merce among the nations which bordered on the
Mediterranean, it is to the Phoenicians that un-
questionably belongs the foremost place. In the
dimmest dawn of history, many centuries before the
Greeks had set foot in Asia Minor or in Italy, before
even they had settled down in secure possession of
their own territories, we hear of Phoenician settlements
in Asia Minor and in Greece itself, in Africa, in Mace-
don, and in Spain. There is hardly an island in the
Mediterranean which has not preserved some traces of
these early visitors : Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete in the
Levant ; Malta, Sicily, and the Balearic Isles in the
middle passage ; Sardinia and Corsica in the Tyr*

* Herod, ii. 178.

FRE-EMINEACE OF PHCENICIAN COMMERCE, 9

rhenian Sea ; the Cyclades, as Thucydides tells us, in
the mid-^gean ; ^ and even Samothrace and Thasos
at its northern extremity, where Herodotus, to use his
own forcible expression, himself saw a whole mountain
' turned upside down ' by their mining energy : ' all
have either yielded Phoenician coins and inscriptions^
have retained Phoenician proper names and legends, or
possess mines, long, perhaps, disused, but which were
worked as none but Phoenicians ever worked them.
But among the Phoenician factories which dotted the
whole southern shore of the Mediterranean, from the
east end of the greater Syrtis even to the Pillars of
Hercules, there was one which, from a concurrence
of circumstances, was destined rapidly to outstrip all
the others, to make herself their acknowledged head,
to become the Queen of the Mediterranean, and, in
some sense, of the Ocean beyond, and, for a space of
over a hundred years, to maintain a deadly and not an
unequal contest with the future mistress of the world.
The history of that great drama, its antecedents, and
its consequgices, forms the subject of this volume.

The risfflg African factory was known to its in-
habitants by the name of Kirjath-Hadeschath, or New
Town, to distinguish it from the much older settle-
ment of Utica, of which it may have been, to some
extent, an offshoot. The Greeks, when they came to
know of its existence, called it Karchedon, and the
Romans Carthago. The date of its foundation is
uncertain ; but the current tradition refers it to a
period about a hundred years before the founding of

' Thucyd. i. 8 ; cf. Herod, iv. 147. * Herod, vi. 47.

lo CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Rome.^ The fortress that was to protect the young
settlement was built upon a peninsula projecting
eastwards from the inner corner of what is now called
the Gulf of Tunis, the largest and most beautiful
roadstead of the North African coast

The topography of Carthage will be described in
detail at a later period of this history. At present it
will be sufficient to remark that the city proper, at
the time at which it is best known to us, the period
of the Punic wars, consisted of the Byrsa or Citadel-
quarter, a Greek word corrupted from the Canaanitish
Bozra, or Bostra, that is, a fort, and of the Cothon,
or harbour quarter, so important in the history of the
final siege. To the north and west of these, and
occupying all the vast space between them and the
isthmus behind, were the Megara (Hebrew, Magurim),
that is, the suburbs and gardens of Carthage, which,
with the city proper, covered an area twenty-three
miles in circumference.^ Its population must have
been fully proportionate to its size. Just before the
third Punic war, when its strength had been drained
by the two long wars with Rome and by the incessant
depredations of that chartered brigand Massinissa, it
contained 700,000 inhabitants,^ and towards the close
of the final siege the Byrsa alone was able to give

^ Justin, xviii. 6. 9: * Condita est urbs haec septuaginta duobus annis
antequam Roma.' Appian (/V/». i.) places its foundation fifty years
before the fall of Troy. The wide discrepancy may be perhaps ac-
counted for by the existence of an earlier Phoenician settlement on
or about the same spot, said to have been called Cambe.

* Polybius, i. 73-5 ; Livy, Epit. 41 ; Strabo, xvii. 3. 14.

• Strabo, 3-15.

f

i

ITS RELATION TO SICILY. ii

shelter to a motley multitude of 50,000 men, women,
and children.^

The river Bagradas (Mejerda), which traverses
what was then the most fertile portion of Northern
Africa, a country smiling with corn fields, and gardens,
olive plantations, and vineyards, and forming the
home domain of Carthage, entered the Gulf of Tunis
on the north side of the city ; but the silt which it
has brought down, combined with the sand thrown
up in that part of the gulf by wind and tide together,
has, in the lapse of ages, altered its course, and its
mouth is now to be found, not near the site of the
daughter, but some miles to the northward, near the
parent city of Utica.

Facing the Hermaean promontory (Cape Bon), the
north-eastern horn of the Gulf of Tunis, at a distance
of only ninety miles, was the Island of Sicily, which,
as a glance at the map, and as the sunken ridge ex-
tending from one to the other still clearly show, must
have once actually united Europe to Africa. This fair
island it was which, crowded, even in those early days,
with Phoenician factories,^ seemed to beckon the chief
of Phoenician cities onwards towards an easy and a
natural field of foreign conquest. This it was which
proved to be the apple of fierce discord for centuries
between Carthage and the Greek colonies, which soon
disputed its possession with her. This, in an ever
chequered warfare, and at the cost of torrents of the
blood of her mercenaries, and of untold treasures of her
citizens, enriched Carthage with the most splendid
trophies — stolen trophies though they were — of Greek

* Appian, Fun, 130. * Cf. Thuc. vi. 2.

12 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

art. This, finally, was the chief battle-field of the
contending forces during the whole of the first Punic
war — in the beginning, that is, of her fierce struggle
for existence with all the power of Rome;

Such, very briefly, was the city, and such the race
whose varied fortunes, so far as our fragmentary
materials allow us, we are about to trace. What
were the causes of the rapid rise of Carthage ; what
was the extent of her African and her foreign do-
minions, and the nature of her hold upon them, what
were the peculiar excellences and defects of her in-
ternal constitution, and what the principles on which
she traded and colonised, conquered and ruled ; —
to these and other questions some answer must be
given, as a necessary preliminary to that part of her
history, which alone we can trace consecutively.
Some answer we must give, but how are we to give
it } No native poet, whose writings have come down
to us, has sung of the origin of Carthage, or of her
romantic voyages ; no native orator has described, in
glowing periods which we can still read, the splendour
of her buildings and the opulence of her merchant
princes. No native annalist has preserved the story
of her long rivalry with Greeks and Etruscans, and
no African philosopher has moralised upon the stability
of her institutions or the causes of her fall. All have
perished. The text of three treaties with Rome,
made in the days of her prosperity ; the log-book of
an adventurous Carthaginian admiral, dedicated on
his return from the Senegal or the Niger as a votive
offering in the temple of Baal ; some fragments of the
practical precepts of a Carthaginian agriculturist.

EARLY HISTORY OF CARTHAGE. 13

• ■ ■ ■ ■

translated by the order of the utilitarian Roman
senate ; a speech or two of a vagabond Carthaginian
in the Paenulus of Plautus, which has been grievously
mutilated in the process of transcribing it into Roman
letters ; a few Punic inscriptions buried twenty feet
below the surface of the ground, entombed and pre-
served by successive Roman, and Vandal, and Arab
devastations, and now at length revealed and de-
ciphered by the efforts of French and English archaeo-
logists ; the massive substructions of ancient temples ;
the enormous reservoirs of water ; and the majestic
procession of stately aqueducts which no barbarism
has been able to destroy — these are the only native
or semi-native sources from which we can draw the
outlines of our picture, and we must eke out our nar-
rative of Carthage in the days of her prosperity, as
best we may, from a few chapters of reflexions by
the greatest of the Greek philosophers, from the late
Roman annalists who saw everything with Roman
eyes, and from a few but precious antiquarian remarks
in the narrative of the great Greek historian, Polybius,
whO) with all his love of truth and love of justice, saw
Carthage only at the moment of her fall, and was the
bosom friend of her destroyer.

In her origin, at least, Carthage seems to have
been, like other Phoenician settlements, a mere com-
mercial factory. Her inhabitants cultivated friendly
relations with the natives, looked upon themselves as
tenants at will rather than as owners of the soil, and,
as such, cheerfully paid a rent to the African Berbers
for the ground covered by their dwellings.^ It was the

' Justin, xviii. 5. 14.

14 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

instinct of self-preservation alone which dictated a
change of policy, and transformed this peace-loving
mercantile community into the warlike and conquer-
ing state, of which the whole of the Western Mediter-
ranean was so soon to feel the power, A people far
less keen-sighted than the Phoenicians must have dis-
cerned that it was their very existence which was at
stake ; at all events, that unless they were willing to
be dislodged from Africa, and Sicily, and Spain, as
they had already been dislodged from Italy and
Greece, and the islands of the Levant, by the flood of
Hellenic colonisation, they must alter their policy.
Accordingly they joined hands (in B.C. 537) with their
inveterate enemies, the Etruscans, to prevent a
threatened settlement of some exiled Phocaeans on
the important island of Corsica.^ In Africa they took
up arms to make the inhabitants of Cyrene feel that
it was towards Egypt or the interior, not towards
Carthage, that they must look for an extension of
their boundaries ; ^ and in Sicily, by withdrawing half
voluntarily from the eastern side of the island in
which the Greeks had settled, they tightened their
grip upon that western portion which, as being nearer
to Carthage, was more important to them, and where
the original Phoenician settlements of Panormus,
Motye, and Soloeis had been planted.

The result of this change of policy was that the
western half of the Mediterranean became — what, at
one time, the whole of it had bidden fair to be — a
Phoenician lake, in which no foreign merchantmen
dared to show themselves. It was a vast preserve, to

' Herod, i. 165- 166. • Sallust, yugurtha, 79.

GROWTH OF ITS EMPIRE, 15

be caught trespassing upon which, so Strabo tells us,
on the authority of Eratosthenes, ensured the punish-
ment of instant death by drowning.^ No promontory
was so barren, no islet so insignificant,^ as to escape
the jealous and ever- watchful eye of the Cartha-
ginians. In Corsica, if they could not get any firm
or extensive foothold themselves, they at least pre-
vented any other state from doing the like.^ Into
their hands fell, in spite of the ambitious dreams of
Persian kings and the aspirations of patriot Greeks,
that * greatest of all islands,' the island of Sardinia ;*
theirs were the iEgatian and the Liparaean, the
Balearic and the Pityusian Isles ; theirs the tiny
Elba, with its inexhaustible supply of metals ; theirs,
too, Malta still remained, an outpost pushed far into
the domain of their advancing enemies, a memorial
of what once had been, and, perhaps, to the sanguine
Carthaginian temperament, an earnest of what might
be again hereafter.* Above all, the Phoenician settle-
ments in Spain, at the innermost corner of the great
preserve, with the adjacent silver mines which gave
to these settlements their peculiar value, were now
trebly safe from all intruders.

Elated, as it would seem, by their naval successes,
which were hardly of their own seeking, the Cartha-
ginians thought that they might now at last become
the owners of the small strip of African territory

» Strabo, xvii. I. 19. ^ Thuc. vi. 2; Polyb. i. 10. 5.

» Herod, i. 166 ; cf. Servius on Virg. ^n. iv. 628, * litora litoribus
contraria,' where he quotes the stipulation on the neutrality of Corsica,
as between the Carthaginians and Romans.

^ Herod, i. 170, and v. 106 ; Polyb. iii. 22 and 25.

* Cf. Livy, xxi. 51 ; Diod. v. 12 ; Cicero, Verres, 11. 72 ; iv. 46.

i6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

' — - ----- -,

which they had hitherto seemed to occupy on suffer-
ance only, and they refused the ground-rent which, up
till now, they had paid to the adjoining tribes.^ Step
by step they enlarged their territories at the ex-
pense of the natives, till the whole of the rich terri-
tory watered by the Bagradas became theirs. The
Nomadic tribes were beaten back beyond the river
Triton into the country named, from the roving habits
of its inhabitants, Numidia, or into the desert of Tri-
polis.^ The agricultural tribes were forced to pay
tribute to the conquerors for the right of cultivating
their own soil, or to shed their blood on the field of
battle in the prosecution of further conquests from
the tribes beyond.

Nor did the kindred Phoenician settlements in the
adjoining parts of Africa escape unscathed. Utica
alone, owing probably to her antiquity and to the
semi-parental relation in which she stood to Carthage,
was allowed to retain her walls and full equality of
rights with the rising power ; ^ but Hippo Zarytus,
and Adrumetum, the greater and the lesser Leptis,
were compelled to pull down their walls and acknow-
ledge the supremacy of the Carthaginian city. All

* Justin, xix. I. 3 and ii. 4. * Cf. Herod, iv. 191.

■ It is remarkable that while Utica is not mentioned in the first
treaty between Rome and Carthage, concluded, according to Polybius
(iii. 22), in 509 B.C., she appears in the second treaty (Polyb. iii. 24)
348 B.C. on terms of exact equality with Carthage, and even in that
made by Hannibal, when in Italy, with Philip of Macedon (Polyb.
vii. 9) 215 B.C., she receives the honour of a s{iecial and independent
mention. Probably the subjection to Carthage of the other Phoeni-
cian cities in Africa had taken place in the interval, and had left Utica
in this position of solitary preeminence.

DEALINGS WITH PHCENICIAN CITIES. 17

along the northern coast of Africa the original Phoeni-
cian settlers, and, probably, to some extent, the Cartha-
ginians themselves, had intermarried with the natives.
The product of these marriages was that numerous
class of Liby-phoenicians which proved to be so im-
portant in the history of Carthaginian colonisation
and conquest ;^ a class which, equi-distant from the
Berbers on the one hand and from the Carthaginians
proper on the other, and composed of those who were
neither wholly citizens nor yet wholly aliens, experi-
enced the lot of most half-castes, and were alternately
trusted and feared, pampered and oppressed, loved
and hated, by the ruling state.

It would follow, from what has been already said
of the retreat of the Phoenicians from the Eastern
Mediterranean, and the occupation of this portion of
the sea by the Greeks, that as Carthage rose so would
Tyre naturally decline ; but it was in the days of that
decline that Tyre, like other Phoenician cities, gathering
fresh strength from her weakness, and fresh courage
from her despair, displayed those powers of dogged
resistance to the inevitable which would seem to be
the peculiar dower of her own and of kindred nations.
Three tremendous sieges, directed, the one b}'' the great-
est of the Assyrian, the second by the greatest of the
Babylonian, and the third by the greatest of the Mace-
donian monarchs, did Tyre undergo even in the days
of her * decline and fall ;* and the terrible vengeance of
Alexander, when the bitter end had come upon the
city which he could break but could not bend, is the

* Polyb. iii. 33. 15 ; Livy, xxi. 22; xxv. 40 ; Diod. xx. 55.

C

i8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

best evidence of the more than human endurance
which, when they were driven to stand at bay, the
inhabitants of the great merchant city could put
forth. Tyre herself fell, but the great Tyrian city in
the Bay of Tunis still remained ; and to Carthage the
few Tyrians — young children or old men — who alone
escaped, transferred their fortunes and their hopes.^
In the annals of Phoenician colonisation (and it should
be remembered) — for it sheds a kindly ray of human
feeling over a history which as seen in our imperfect re-
cords of it, with what we know as well as what we do not
know, is not too human — the closest ties of intimacy
were generally maintained between the mother and
the daughter cities.^ There was no mean jealousy,
as so often happened among the Greeks, on the part
of the mother towards the daughter ; there was no
precocious self-assertion or unseemly arrogance on
the part of the rising daughter towards her declining
mother. The Persian king might command the
services of the Phoenician navy to help him to crush
a Greek or an Egyptian rival ; but the most ferocious
of them all, Cambyses himself, found that he might as
well have issued his orders to the winds or the waves
as have bidden the Tyrians to take up sacrilegious
arms against their Carthaginian children.^

One enterprise, indeed, the Carthaginians did
undertake in obedience to the fiat of the great king,
which, to the lasting good of humanity, failed of its
object. Xerxes (B.C. 480) advancing with his millions

' Diodorus Siculus, xvii. 40. 46 ; Q. Curtiiis, iv. 2.
* Diod. XX. 14 ; cf. Justin, xviii. 7. 7.
' Herod, iii. 19.

CONSTITUTION OF CARTHAGE, 19

of barbarians upon Athens from the east, bade, so it
is said, Hamilcar advance with his 300,000 merce-
naries upon Syracuse from the west.^ The torch of
Greek learning and civilisation was to be extinguished
at the most opposite ends of the Greek world at one
and the same moment ; but, happily for mankind at
large, both attempts were foiled. The efforts of
Xerxes ended in the destruction of the Persian fleet
at Salamis, and the disgraceful flight of the king to
Asia ; the efforts of Hamilcar ended in his defeat and
death at Himera, and in the destruction of 1 50,000
of his army ; and by a dramatic propriety which is not
common in history, whatever it may be in fiction,
this double victory of Greek civilisation is said to
have taken place in the same year and on the very
same day.^

Let us now turn to the political organization of the
city which achieved so rapid and marvellous a develop-
ment, and enquire how far it was the effect and how
far the cause of her prosperity. The constitution of
Carthage was not the work of a single legislator, as
that of Sparta is said to have been, nor of a series of
legislators like that of Athens ; it was rather, like that
of England, the growth of circumstances and of cen-
turies. It obtained the praise of Aristotle for its
judicious admixture of the monarchical, the oligarchi-
cal, and the democratical elements.^ The oligarchical

^ Diod. xi. 21-24 ; Justin, xix. i, 12.

^ Herod, vii. 166. See below, p. 48.

• Aristotle, Politics^ ii. ii; cf. also Polyb. vi. 51. See Heeren's
chapter on the Constitution of Carthage (* Reflexions on Trade'), vol.
i.-iii., to which, in common with all other modem writers on Car-

c^

20 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

element, he admits, tended from very early times to a
predominance ;* but that it must have been moderate
and beneficial in the use of its power is shown, he re-
marks, by the fact that its rule was never seriously
threatened either by a despot from above or by the
masses from below.^ It must be remembered — for
much of the confusion that exists with regard to the
Carthaginian constitution is owing to its being for-
gotten — that Aristotle's remarks as to the mixed
character of the Carthaginian government, however
true they may be of the Carthage of the earlier times^
are only true in a limited sense of the Carthage we
know best — the Carthage of the Punic wars.

The original monarchical constitution — doubtless
inherited from Tyre — was represented (practically in
Aristotle's time, and theoretically to the latest period)
by two supreme magistrates called by the Romans
Suffetes. Their name is the same as the Hebrew
Shofetim, mistranslated in our Bible, Judges. The
Hamilcars and Hannos of Carthage were, like their
prototypes, the Gideons and the Samsons of the Book
of Judges, not so much the judges, as the protec-
tors and the rulers of their respective states. They
are compared by Greek writers to the two kings of
Sparta, and by the Romans to their own consuls.^
That they were, in the earliest times, appointed for

thage, I am much indebted. He has collected nearly all the information
relating to the obscure subject of the constitution of Carthage to be
foimd in the ancients ; obscure, however, it still unfortunately remains.

> Arist. Pol, ii. ii. 8-9.

' Arist. loc. cit, 2.

» Arist. loc, cit, 3 ; Livy, xxx. 7. * Senatum itaque Suffetes
(quod velut consulare imperium apud eos erat) vocavenmt.' There

THE SENATE. 21

life, and not, as is commonly supposed, elected an-
nually, is clear from a variety of indications ; and, like
the * king of the sacrifices * at Rome, and the ' king
archon * at Athens, they seem, when the kingly office
itself was abolished, to have retained those priestly
functions which, according to ancient conceptions,
were indissolubly united with royalty.*

Beneath these kings came, in the older constitu-
tion, a council, called by the Greeks the Gerusia,^ or
Council of Ancients, consisting of twenty-eight mem-
bers, over which the Suffetes presided. This council
declared war, ordered levies of troops, appointed
generals, sent out colonies.' If the council and
Suffetes agreed, their decision was final ; if they dis-
agreed, the matter was referred to the people at large.*
In this and in other ways each element of the body
politic had its share in the administration of the
State.

But the Carthaginian constitution described and
praised by Aristotle is not the same as that of the Punic
wars. In the interval which separates the two epochs,
short as it is, a great change, which must have been
long preparing, had been completed. The Suffetes
had gradually become little more than an honorary

were two Suffetes also at Gades, and perhaps in all the Phoenician
colonies, Livy, xxviii. 37. * Suffetes eorum, qui summus Poenis est
magistratus . . . cruci adfigi jussit.'

* Cf. Herod, viii. 167, &c.

' Cf. Livy, XXX. 16. 'Oratores ad pacem petendam mittunt tri-
ginta seniorum principes. Id erat sanctius apud illos consilium,
maximaque ad ipsum senatum regendum vis.'

■ Cf. Polyb. i. 31. 8 ; iii. 33. 2, 3 ; vi. 5. I, 2.

* Arist. FoL ii. ii. 5. '

22 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

magistracy. The senate over which they presided
had allowed the main part of their power to slip out
of their hands into those of another body, which, if it
seemed to be more liberal in point of numbers and in
conformation, was much more exclusive in policy and
spirit. The appeal to the people was only now re-
sorted to in times of public excitement, when the
rulers, by appearing to share power, tried to lessen
envy, and allowed the citizens to go through the form
of registering what, practically, they had already de-
creed. The details of the change are obscure ; but
there are some points which are undisputed and are
sufficient to indicate its general character. The new
body consisted of 104 members, and was commonly
known by the name of ' The Hundred.' Its members
were selected indeed from a larger body, who were
themselves, in some sense, the choice of the people*
But the choice of the people in Carthage fell only on
the wealthy ; and these, when once they had been so
chosen, were responsible to no one for the exercise of
their patronage,* and filled up the vacancies in the
Hundred from among themselves, like the members
of a close college. The result was an oligarchy, like
that of Venice, clear-sighted and consistent, moderate,
nay, often wise in its policy, but narrow in its views,
and often suspicious alike of its opponents and of its
friends.

By the old constitution the Senate had the right
to control the magistrates; but this new body of
Judges controlled the Senate, and therefore, in

* Arist. Pol, ii. I. 7.

THE HUNDRED JUDGES, 23

reality, the magistrates also. Nor was it content to
control the Senate ; it practically superseded it. Its
members did not, as a rule, appropriate the offices of
State to themselves ; but they could summon their
holders before them, and so draw their teeth. No
Shofete, no senator, no general, was exempt from
their irresponsible despotism.* The Shofetes pre-
sided, the senators deliberated, the generals fought, as
it were, with a halter round their necks. The sentences
passed by the Hundred, if they were often deserved^
were often also, like those of the dreaded ^ Ten * at
Venice, to whom they bore a striking resemblance,
arbitrary and cruel. The unsuccessful general, alike,
whether his ill-success was the result of uncontrollable
circumstances or of culpable neglect, might be con-
demned to crucifixion ;^ indeed, he often wisely anti-
cipated his sentence by committing suicide.

Within the ranks of this close oligarchy first-rate
ability would seem to have been at a discount. In-
deed, the exact equality of all within the privileged
ranks is as much a principle of oligarchy as is the
equal suppression of all that is outside of it. Lan-
guage bears testimony to this in the name given alike

> Justin, xix. 2. 5. 'Centum ex numero senatoram judices deli-
guntur, qui, reversis a bello ducibus, rationem rerum gestaram exigerent,
ut hoc metu ita in bello imperia cogitarent, ut domi judicia legesque
respicerent.' Livy (xxxiii. 46. 3) shows that at the end of the Second
Punic War his office of * judge' had become an office for life ; there
was therefore no check at all upon the abuse of its powers : ' Res,
fama, vitaque omnium in illorum potestate erat ; qui unum ejus ordinis,
idem omnes adversos habebat.'

' Cf. Polybius, i. ii. 5 ; Diod. xx. 10; Val. Max. ii. 7. i. ext. ;
Zonaras, viii. ii and 17.

24 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

to the Homoioi of Sparta and the * Peers ' of England.
It was jealousy, for instance, of the superior abilities
of the family of Mago, and their prolonged pre-emi-
nence in the Carthaginian State, which had in the
fifth century B.C. cemented the alliance between other
and less able families of the aristocracy, and so, ac-
cording to the express testimony of Justin,* had first
given rise to this very institution of the Hundred
Judges; and it was the same mean jealousy of all
that is above itself, which, afterwards, in the time of
the Punic wars, united, as one man, a large part of
the ruling oligarchs in the vain effort to control and
to thwart, and to annoy with a thousand petty annoy-
ances, the one family of consummate ability which
Carthage then possessed, that noble-minded Barcine
gens, that * lion's brood, ' ^ who were brought to the
front in those troublous times by the sheer force of
their genius, and who, for three generations, ruled by
the best of all rights — the right Divine — that of un-
swerving devotion to their country, of the ability to
rule, and the will to use that ability well.

But if we assert, as we have implied, that it was
the want of power rather than of will on the part of
the ruling oligarchy, which ever left to the general-in-
chief that absolute command and that unlimited term
of office, which, to our minds, is essential to the pro-
secution of a great and distant war, we must take care
that we are just. Our ideas of the Carthaginian con-
stitution are derived, such as they are, always from
foreign, and almost always from unfriendly sources.

> Justin, xix. 2. 5, 6. * Val. Max. ix. 3. 2. ext.

GENERAL CONTENTMENT. 25

Moreover, the information given us on such a subject is
— all questions of bias or prejudice apart — necessarily
even more fragmentary, and derived from far more
imperfect data, than is our knowledge of the material
resources, or the external relations of Carthage. The
student of Carthaginian history stands, therefore, in
the position of the judge who, when there is no counsel
to be found for the accused, is himself, in some
measure, bound to undertake that office. If the scales
of justice are to be held even, he must look upon
himself as so far holding a brief for the defence, as to
be bound to suggest everything that may fairly be
urged in suspense of an adverse judgment. And that
the judgments of the Hundred were not always so
arbitrary and the policy of the aristocracy not always
so ungenerous as is often supposed, is clear from two
indisputable facts : first, that the best and ablest
citizens were never backward to place their services,
in time of war, at the disposal of the government ; and,
secondly, that no general of mark, however popular
he might be with his soldiers, or however much for-
tune might have frowned upon his enterprises, ever
attempted to use his power for the overthrow of the
constitution. Such was not the experience of either
Greece or Rome ; and we cannot, therefore, help feel-
ing, in spite of what the Greek and Roman writers
say, that there must have been at Carthage a general
feeling of satisfaction with the government and an
expectation of substantial justice at their hands.

If we try, as we cannot help trying, to picture to
ourselves the daily life and personal characteristics of
the people whose political organization we have just

26 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

described, and to ask, not what the Carthaginians
did — for that we know — but what they were, we are
confronted by the provoking blank in the national
history which has been already noticed. Such few
indications as we have are in thorough keeping with
the view we have taken of the political exclusiveness
of the ruling clique. There were public baths ; but
since no member of the Senate would bathe where the
people bathed, a special class of baths were set apart
for their use ; ^ there were public messes, as they were
called ; but these were not, as Aristotle supposed, ana-
logous to the Spartan Syssitia,^ an institution in-
tended to foster manliness and simplicity of life. The
black broth of the heroes of Sparta would not have
suited the Carthaginian nobles, who, clad in their
famous cloth dyed twice over with the purple dye
of their African, their Spanish, or their Tyrian
fisheries,^ and decorated with the finely-cut glass
beads, the invention of their Phoenician forefathers,*
fared sumptuously on their abounding flocks and herds,
or on such delicious fruits as those with which Cato
moved the astonishment and the envy of the senators
of Rome. The Carthaginian Syssitia were incentives
to luxury, not checks upon it ; they were clubs formed
originally for social gatherings, and afterwards ap-
plied to the purposes of political gossip or corruption.

* Valerius Maximus, ix. 5. 4. ext.

* Arist. Pol, ii. II. 3 ; cf. Livy, xxxiv. 61 : *In circulis conviviisque
celebrata sermonibus res est ; deinde in senatu quidam,' &c.

* Hor. Epode^ xii. 21: *Muricibus Tyriis iteratae vellera lanse,' and
Ode^ ii. 16, 35, *te bis Afromurice tinctae ;' these garments were called

* Pliny, NaL Hist, xxxvi. 6$ ; Tac. Hist, v. 7.

THEIR SOCIAL LIFE, 27

Dining-tables of the costly citron wood, a single
specimen of which, Pliny tells us, in the time of the
Roman empire cost as much as a broad estate, must
have been common amongst those who monopolised
the commerce of the countries where alone the citron-
tree grows. ^ Gold and silver plate cannot have been
rare amongst those who controlled the rich mines of
Spain, and to whom their ambassadors reported,
with a touch of scorn, upon their return from Rome,
that they had been hospitably entertained by senator
after senator, but that one service of plate had done
duty for all. Objects of fine art — statues, and paint-
ings, and embroideries — there were in abundance at
Carthage, but they were the work of Greek, not of
Phoenician artists, and their abundance indicated not
so much the genius, critical or creative, of the Cartha-
ginian community as the number of Greek towns —
Selinus and Himera, Gela and Agrigentum — sacked
in the Sicilian wars. The first commercial state of
antiquity of course possessed a gold and silver coinage
of its own ; but of the coins which have come down
to us it is very doubtful whether many belong to the
Phoenician city, and it is certain that those which
are in any way remarkable for the beauty of their
design or execution were struck in Sicilian mints
and designed by Greek artists. In the issue, how-
ever, of a leather money of a representative value,

• * Latifundii taxatione si quis praedia tanto mercari velit.' See
Pliny, HisL Nat. xiii. 29-30 ; and cf. Martial, xiv. 89.

Accipe felices, Atlantica munera, sylvas :
Aurea qui dederit dona, minora dabit.

Cf. also the phrase * Mauri orbes.'

28 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

which would circulate throughout her dependencies,
Carthage seems, alone of the commercial states of
antiquity, to have anticipated the convenient inven-
tion by modern economists of a paper money.

Carthage was, beyond doubt, the richest city of
antiquity. Her ships were to be found on all known
seas, and there was probably no important product,
animal, vegetable, or mineral, of the ancient world,
which did not find its way into her harbours and pass
through the hand of her citizens. But her commercial
policy was not more farsighted or more liberal than
has been that of other commercial states, even till
very modem times. Free-trade was unknown to her ;
it would have seemed indeed like a contradiction in
terms. If she admitted foreign merchantmen by treaty
to her own harbour, she took care by the same docu-
ment jealously to exclude them from the more im-
portant harbours of her dependencies. She allowed
her colonies to trade only so far as suited her own
immediate interests, and the precautions she took made
it impossible for any one of them ever to become a
great centre of commerce, still less to dream of taking
her place.

It is remarkable, again, that while in no city in
the ancient world did commerce rank so high, the
noblest citizens even of Carthage seem to have left
commercial enterprise to those who came next below
them in the social scale. They preferred to live on
their estates as agriculturists or country gentlemen,
and derived their princely revenues from their farms
or their mines, which were worked by prodigious
gangs of slaves. The cultivation of the soil was,
probably, nowhere in the ancient world carried on with

THEIR RELIGION. 29

such rich results as in the smiling country which sur-^
rounded Carthage. When Agathocles, tyrant of
Syracuse, boldly ventured to transfer to Africa the
war he was waging with doubtful success in Sicily,
he led his army, we are told, through a country
crowded with gardens and plantations, everywhere in-
tersected with canals, by which they were plentifully
watered. Landed estates succeeded to each other
in continuous succession, each adorned with splendid
mansions, which revealed the wealth of the owners.
Prolonged peace had stored their abodes with every-
thing which nature or art could supply ; the country
was fertile with every species of fruit tree ; flocks,
and herds, and brood-mares, abounded in their pas-
tures. Here dwelt the richest of the Carthaginians,
and vied with each other in pomp and luxury.^

But the most important factor in the history of a
people — especially if it be a Semitic people — is its
religion. The religion of the Carthaginians was what
their race, their language, and their history would
lead us to expect. It was, with slight modifications,
the religion of the Canaanites, the religion, that is,
which, in spite of the purer Monotheism of the
Hebrews and the higher teaching of their prophets,
so long exercised a fatal fascination over the great
bulk of the Hebrew race. The Phoenician religion
has been defined to be * a deification of the powers of
Nature, which naturally developed into an adoration
of the objects, in which those powers seemed most
active.' * Of this adoration the Sun and Moon were
the primary objects. The Sun can either create or
destroy, he can give life or take it away. The Moon

* Diodorus, xx, 8. ' Movers.

30 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

is his consort ; she can neither create nor destroy, but
she can receive and develope, and, as the queen of
night, she presides alike over its stillness and its
orgies. Each of these ruling deities, Baal-Moloch or
the Sun-god, and the homed Astarte or the Moon —
worshipped at Carthage, it would seem, under the
name of Tanith — would thus have an ennobling as
well as a degrading, a more cheerful as well as a more
gloomy, aspect Unfortunately, it was the gloomy
and debasing side of their worship which tended to
predominate alike in Phoenicia proper and in the
greatest of the Phoenician colonies.

Baal-Moloch was a malignant deity ; he was the
fire-god, rejoicing * in human sacrifices and in parents'
tears.' His worshippers gashed and mutilated them-
selves in their religious frenzy. Like Kronos or
Saturn — to whom the Greeks and Romans aptly
enough compared him — he was the devourer of his
own children. In times of unbroken security the
Carthaginians neglected or forgot him ; but when they
were elated by an unlooked-for victory, or depressed
by a sudden reverse, that fanaticism which is often
dormant but never altogether absent from the Semitic
breast, burst forth into a devouring flame, which
gratified to the full his thirst for human blood.^

Tanith or Astarte, in the nobler aspects which she
sometimes presented, as the goddess of wedded love
or war, of the chase, or of peaceful husbandry, was
identified by the Romans, now with Juno, now with
Diana, and now again with Ceres ; but, unfortunately,

* Diod. XX. 14 and 65 ; Silius Italicus, iv. 765-773. See below,
pp. 118-119.

''^•'^:^^^'^'

DEEP-ROOTED CHARACTER OF THE WORSHIP. 31

it was when they identified her with their Venus
Coelestis that they came nearest to the truth. Her
worship, like that of the Babylonian Mylitta, required
immorality, nay, it consecrated it. The ' abomina-
tion of the Sidonians ' was also the abomination of
the Carthaginians.^

To one or other of these two deities almost all
the votive tablets disinterred at Carthage, whether
they belong to the Phoenician or the Roman city,
are dedicated.^ How deeply the practices that their
worship sanctioned must have been rooted in the
hearts of the Phoenician people is clear from the fact
that long after Carthage and the Carthaginians had
been swept away ; when a new Roman city had taken
its place, subject to Roman laws, and administered
by Roman magistrates, but peopled, in great part, by
such waifs and strays of the Phoenician population
as could be got together from the adjoining districts
of Africa, with the rising temples came back also their
chartered libertinism and their human sacrifices. A
Roman pro-consul, named Tiberius, endeavoured to
check the practice of human sacrifice by hanging the
priests on the trees of their own sacred groves. But
this violent attempt to suppress the deep religious
instincts of a people who even then called themselves
Canaanites, was not more successful than had been the
peaceful effort made by Darius nearly five centuries
before Christ;^ and for several centuries after Christ

* Herod, i. 199, for worship of Venus at Sicca ; Val. Max. ii. 6. 15.

2 See Davis, Carthage and her Remains^ p. 256 sq. and plates ;
of. also Beule, Fotiilles d Carthage, plate 3.

•Justin, xix. i. 10-13. * Interrogati,' says Augustine, *rustici
nostri quid sint, Punic^ respondent, Chanani.'

32 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

we find that Christian bishops, such as Cyprian, or
Christian Fathers, such as Tertullian and Augustine,
are loud in their denunciations of the immoralities
belonging to a worship which had been so long for-
bidden and so long retained.

Other gods of whom we read, such as Esmun or
iEsculapius, to whom the temple on the Byrsa, the
finest in the whole city,^ was dedicated, were doubt-
less originally looked upon only as manifestations of
the two superior deities, but in time they assumed a
separate existence of their own.

But there was one of these inferior gods who
stood in such a peculiar relation to Carthage, and
whose worship seems to have been so much more
genial and so much more spiritual than the rest, that
we are fain to dwell upon it as a foil to what has pre-
ceded. This god was Melcarth, that is Melech-
Kirjath, or the king of the city ; he is called by the
Greeks * the Phoenician Hercules,* and his name itself
has passed, with a slight alteration, into Greek mytho-
logy as Melicertes. The city of which he was pre-emi-
nently the god was Tyre. There he had a magnificent
temple which was visited for antiquarian purposes by
Herodotus.^ It contained two splendid pillars, one
of pure gold, the other, as Herodotus believed, of
emerald, which shone brilliantly at night, but there
was no image of the god to be seen. The same was
the case in his famous temple at Thasos, and the still
more famous one at Gades, which contained an oracle,

* Appian, Pun, vi. 130.

« Herod, ii. 44. Another name of the god was Baal-Tzur, i.e. the
god of Tyre.

THE GOD MELCARTH. 33

a hierarchy of priests, and a mysterious spring which
rose and fell inversely with the tide, but still no image.*
At Carthage Melcarth had not even a temple. The
whole city was his temple, and he refused to be
localised in any particular part of it. He received,
there is reason to believe, no sacrifices of blood ; and
it was his comparatively pure and spiritual worship
which, as we see repeatedly in Carthaginian history,
formed a chief link in the chain that bound the
parent to the various daughter-cities scattered over
the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean.

The Carthaginian proper names which have come
down to us form one among many proofs of the
depth of their religious feelings ; for they are all, or
nearly all, compounded with the name of one or other
of their chief gods. Hamilcar is he whom Melcarth
protects ; Hasdrubal is he whose help is in Baal ;
Hannibal, the Hanniel of the Bible, is the grace of
Baal ; and so on with Bomilcar, Himilco, Ethbaal,
Maherbal, Adherbal, and Mastanabal.

A considerable native literature there must have
been at Carthage, for Mago, a Carthaginian Shofete,
did not disdain to write a treatise of twenty-eight
books upon the agricultural pursuits which formed the
mainstay of his order ; and when the Roman Senate,
in their fatuous disregard for intellect, gave over with
careless profusion to their friends, the Berber chiefs,
the contents of all the libraries they "had found in Car-

* Sil. Ital. iii. 30 :—

Sed nulla effigies, simulacrave nota deorum,
Majestate locum et sacro implevere timore.

D

34 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

thage, they reserved for this work the especial honour
of an authorised translation into Latin, and of a for-
mal recommendation of its practical maxims to the
thrifty husbandmen of Rome.^

That many smaller works upon the same subject
must have existed at Carthage before a work of such
magnitude could have been produced by a man, wha
was an active general as well as an agriculturist, is
evident enough. That the intrinsic merits of Mago*s
treatise were not inferior to its bulk is also clear from
the influence which the authorised translation at once
asserted and long maintained at Rome. What Aris-
totle was to the mediaeval philosophers and theologians,
that Mago seems to have been, in his measure, to the
Italian agriculturists. Varro, the most learned of the
Romans, and the author, among 489 other publica-
tions, of the most valuable treatise on ancient agricul-
ture which we possess, quotes Mago as the highest
authority on the subject,^ and other Roipan writers
have handed down to us with no less respect various
maxims on the breeding and management of cattle,
the care of poultry and of bees, the planting of forest
trees and the treatment of the vine and the olive, the
almond and the pomegranate, all drawn from the same
fountain-head. ' We honour,' says Columella, ' above
all other writers Mago the Carthaginian, the father of
husbandry.'^ Nor can a work which stood the test of

' Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. 5. * Regulis Africoe.* The chief trans-
lator was one D. Silanus; a good Punic scholar. It was also translated
into Greek by Cassius Dionysius of Utica. Varro, i. i. 10 (quoted by
Heeren). See his appendix on Mago's work.

2 Varro, i. I. 10. " Columella, i. i. 13.

THEIR LITERATURE. 35

a translation into Greek, as well as into Latin, have
been altogether destitute of literary merit. Be that
as it may, what we know of this one specimen of Car-
thaginian literature does not dispose us' to view with
more indulgence the criminal carelessness of the
Romans. If they destroyed the city and its in-
habitants, they might have taken steps to preserve its
literature ; at all events they need not have handed it
over to its most illiterate and inveterate enemies. But
having done a deed of which some of the better spirits
even amongst themselves were ashamed, they deter-
mined, as it would seem, to leave nothing which could
unnecessarily remind them of it. A century later,
Sallust saw some of these v^ry Carthaginian books,
the property, as he was told, of King Hiempsal.^
What little of their contents on other subjects he was
able to gather from his interpreters he embodied in his
history of the Jugurthine War ; but when he reaches
the point where he would naturally have launched out
on Carthage, it is with a touch of sadness, not un-
mixed, as we would fain hope, with shame, that he
passes on with the remark, * I say nothing about
Carthage, for I think it is better to say nothing about
her, than to say too little.' ^

Those members of the Carthaginian aristocracy
who did not find a sufficient field for their ability in
agriculture, or in politics, in literature, or in commerce,,
took refuge in the profession of arms, and formed always
the chief ornament and often the chief strength of the
Punic armies. At one period, at least, of the history

» SaUust, Jug, i. 17. 2 iijid. Jug, i. 19.

D 2

36 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

of the State they formed a so-called * Sacred band * ^
consisting of 2,500 citizens, who, clad in resplendent
armour, fought around the person of their general-in-
chief, and feasting from dishes of the costliest gold
and silver plate, commemorated in their pride the
number of their campaigns by the number of the
rings on their fingers.^

It was, however, the one fatal weakness of the
Carthaginian State for military purposes that the
bulk of their vast armies consisted not of their own
citizens, nor even of attached and obedient subjects,
but of foreign mercenaries. There were few countries
and few tribes in the western world which were not
represented in a Carthaginian army. Money or
superior force brought to Carthage samples of every
nation which her fleets could reach. Native Libyans
and Libyphoenicians, Gauls and Spaniards, slingers
from the far-famed Balearic Isles, Greeks and Li-
gurians, Volscians and Campanians, were all to be
found within its ranks. But it was the squadrons of
light horsemen drawn from all the nomad tribes
which lay between the Altars of the Phileni on the
east and the Pillars of Hercules on the west, which
formed its heart. Mounted on their famous barbs,
with a shield of elephant's hide on their arm and a
lion's skin thrown over their shoulders, the only
raiment they ever wore by day and the only couch
they ever cared to sleep on at night ; without a saddle
and without a bridle, or with a bridle only of twisted
reeds which they rarely needed to touch ; equally re-

* Diod. Sic. xvi. 80 ; xx, IO-12 ; cf, also Plutarch, Timoleon^ 27.

* Arist. Pol. iv. 2, 10.

THEIR MERCENARIES. 37

markable for their fearlessness, their agility, and their
cunning; equally formidable, whether they charged or
made believe to fly ; they were, at once, the strength
and the weakness, the delight and the despair, of the
Carthaginian State. Under the mighty military genius
of Hannibal — with the ardour which he breathed into
the feeblest and the discipline which he enforced on
the most undisciplined of his army — they faced with-
out shrinking the terrors of the Alps and the malaria
of the marshes, and they proved invincible against all
the power of Rome, at the Ticinus and the Trebia,
at Thrasimene and at Cannae ; but, as more often
happened, led by an incompetent general, treated by
him, as not even Napoleon treated his troops, like so
many beasts for the slaughter, and sometimes even
basely deserted — exposed on a barren rock to perish,
or betrayed into the enemies* hands * — they naturally
proved a two-edged weapon piercing the hand that
leaned upon it, faithless and revengeful, learning
nothing and forgetting nothing, finding once and
again in the direst extremity of Carthage their own
deadliest opportunity.

But if the life of the great capitalists of Carthage
was as brilliant as we have described it, how did it
fare with the poorer citizens, with those whom we call
the masses, till we sometimes forget that they are
made up of individual units ? If we know little of
the rich, how much less do we know of the poor of
Carthage ajid her dependencies ! The city popula-
tion, with the exception — a large exception doubtless
— of those engaged in commerce, well-contented as it

* Diod. V. II ; xiv. 75 ; Zonaras, viii. 10 and 13,

38 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

would seem, like the Romans under the empire, if
nothing deprived them of their bread and of their
amusements, went on eating and marrying and multi-
plying till their numbers became excessive, and then
they were shipped off by the prudence of their rulers
to found colonies in other parts of Africa or in Spain.^
Their natural leaders, or, as, probably, more often
happened, the bankrupt members of the aristocracy,
would take the command of the colony, and obtain
free leave, in return for their services, to enrich them-
selves by the plunder of the adjoining tribes.

To so vast an extent did Carthage carry out the
modern principle of relieving herself of a superfluous
population, and at the same time of extending her
empire, by colonisation, that, on one occasion, the
Admiral Hanno, whose * Periplus ' still remains, was
despatched with sixty ships of war of fifty oars each,
and with a total of not less than 30,000 half-caste
emigrants on board, for the purpose of founding
colonies on the shores of the ocean beyond the Pillars
of Hercules.

But the document recording this voyage is of an
interest so unique, being the one relic of Carthaginian
literature which has come down to us entire, that we
must dwell for a moment on its contents. It was
posted up by the admiral himself, as a thankoffering,
in the temple of Baal, on his return from his adven-
turous voyage, the first attempt, and possibly the suc-
cessful attempt, made by the Phoenicians to reach the
equator from the north-west of Africa, It is preserved

* Arist. PoL ii. II. 15, and vi. 5. 9.

THE PERIPLUS OF HANNO. 39

to us in a Greek translation only,^ the work probably
of some inquisitive Greek traveller, some nameless
Herodotus who went wandering over the world, like
his matchless fellow-countryman, his notebook always
in his hand, and always jotting down everything
which was of interest to himself, or might be of im-
portance to posterity. Hanno passed, so he himself
tells us, the Pillars of Hercules and deposited his
living freight at various points along the coast of
Morocco and the great desert beyond it ; at last he
reached an island to which he gave the name of Cerne,
and which we may perhaps identify with Arguin, 10°
north of the equator,^ since his crew calculated that it
lay as far beyond the Pillars of Hercules as the Pillars
of Hercules themselves were from Carthage. Here he
landed the remainder of his Libyphoenicians, and from
this point he began his great voyage of discovery.
He had already taken interpreters on board, and he
now struck out once more towards the south. He
passed the mouth of the Senegal River, a river
abounding, then as now, with crocodiles and river-
horses. Near its banks dwelt a race of savages, no
longer the brown men of the Barbary States, or of
the Sahara, with whom he must have been familiar
enough, but the ebony negroes of the Soudan. They
were clothed in skins of wild beasts, and spoke a
language unintelligible even to the interpreters.
* They drove us away,* says Hanno pathetically, * by
throwing stones at us.* But on went the explorers.

' It will be found printed in Hudson's Geographi Minores, See
Heeren's Appendix.

' See Lenonnant, Manuel (Thistoire ancienne^ p. 201.

40 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

They passed forests of odoriferous trees, they saw the
natives burning down, as they do at the present day,
the withered grass on the hill sides, and they heard
by night the sound of pipes and cymbals, drums and
confused shouts, the favourite amusements, then as
ever, of the negro race. On they went, till they
reached what was, very possibly, the Camaroons
Mountain itself, only S** above the equator.^ At all
events, there is no other volcano on the west African
coast, and none therefore answering to the description
given by Hanno. The voyagers arrived by night. The
country around seemed full of fire, and in the middle
of it were flames far higher than the rest which
seemed to touch the stars. When day came they
found it was a large mountain, which they well named
the * Chariot of the Gods.* Passing once more on-*
wards still, they reached a gulf called the Southern
Horn, which contained an island with a lagoon. It
was inhabited by savage people, the greater part of
them women, covered with hair. 'Though we pursued
the men, we could not catch any of them ; they all
fled from us, leaping over the precipices and defending
themselves with stones. We caught three of the
women, but they attacked us with tooth and nail,
and could not be persuaded to return with us ; ac-
cordingly we killed and flayed them and took their
skins with us to Carthage/ These strange creatures

* The numerous commentaries on the Periplus of Hanno differ, as
was to be expected, very widely as to the farthest point reached by
him. They range between 28° and 5° N. latitude ; but the known
length of other Carthaginian voyages, and the * hairy men and women '
and * the burning mountain* taken together, perhaps entitle us to pre-
fer the more southern limit.

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 41

were called by the interpreters Gorillas ; a name not
destined to be heard again till its strange revival 2,cxx>
years later, when the mysterious half-human ape of
equatorial Africa, then discovered or rediscovered, took
its name, not unnaturally, from its equally mysteri-
ous prototype in the Periplus of Hanno. From this
point, * Hanno's farthest,' as it might well be called by
subsequent explorers, the admiral returned ; for, as
the record ends with eloquent brevity, * here our pro-
visions failed us/

Nor was Hanno an exceptional specimen of Car-
thaginian daring. If only we knew Carthage as we
know Athens or Rome, from the Carthaginians them-
selves, we should probably have abundant proof that
Hanno was only one example of a numerous class- of
bold explorers, whose services the great colonising
and commercial republic was always able to com-
mand. At all events, we hear from Pliny of another
expedition which was sent in this same fifth century,
under the command of another admiral, Himilco, to
explore the western coasts of Europe. A fragmentary
account of this voyage also .has come down to us in
the shape of a metrical Latin paraphrase of the docu-
ment which originally recorded it,^ and Englishmen
and Irishmen, at all events, will be interested to hear
what we are told of its destination. In a four months'
voyage, keeping to his left the great shoreless ocean
on which no ship had ever ventured, where the breeze
blows not, but eternal fogs rest upon its lifeless

* The Ora maritima of Festus Avienus. It is to be found in the
PoetcB Latini Minores. See Heeren*s Appendix and Comments.

42 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

waters,^ Himilco reached the iEstrymnides (Scilly
Isles). 'Rich are they in metals, tin, and lead ;
spirited and industrious are the race which inhabit
them ; fond, too, are they of trade, and they traverse
the boisterous sea, not on barks of pine or oak, but
on coracles made of skins sewn together. At the
distance of two days' sail from these is the Holy
Island, with its abundant emerald pastures, inhabited
by the Hibernians ; hard by lies also the wide Isle of
Albion.'

One other link connecting indirectly Great Britain
with ancient Carthage may, perhaps, be pointed out
here. Most educated people have read Lord Stan-
hope's * Life of Pitt * ; but too few, perhaps, know
that the title by which he is best known to fame,
that of Lord Mahon, he owes to a famous Cartha-
ginian general. The island of Minorca was early
colonised by the Phoenicians and aftenvards passed
into the hands of the Carthaginians. It contains
the finest harbour in the Mediterranean. Within it
a large fleet of line-of-battle ships can lie in seven
fathoms of water safe from every wind that blows.
This harbour was called * Portus Magonis,' either after
some early Carthaginian explorer of that name, or, as
seems more probable, after the younger brother of
Hannibal himself, who, when he was ejected from
Spain by the Romans, passed over to Minorca and
spent the winter there.^ The name has now been

* Cf. Herod, iv. 43, where Sataspes says the same of the sea to the
west of Africa. Stories of this kind seem to have been industriously
propagated by the jealous Carthaginian mariners as a means of retain-
ing the commerce of the Atlantic exclusively in their own hands.

• Livy, xxviii. 37 and 46.

DISAFFECTION OF SUBJECT RACES. 43

softened into Port Mahon. The Spaniards have a
saying about it that * the ports of the Mediterranean
are June, July, August, and Port Mahon/ The pos-
session of the harbour made the island of Minorca a
bone of contention among all the maritime powers of
Europe throughout the last century. In 1708 it was
attacked by General Stanhope, who, it is said, by
shooting arrows into it, to which were attached papers
threatening the garrison with labour in the mines
unless they instantly surrendered, induced them to
capitulate just before a relieving Spanish force arrived.
To commemorate this event, General Stanhope, when
he was afterwards raised to the Peerage, received as
one of his titles the name of the place which he had
won ; and thus in the strange vicissitudes of human
fortune, an English nobleman bears the name of the
brother of Hannibal, and also of the reputed founder
of the Carthaginian empire itself^

To defray the expenses of this vast system of ex-
ploration and colonisation, as well as of their enor-
mous armies, the most ruinous tribute was imposed
and exacted with unsparing rigour from the subject
native states, and no slight one either from the
cognate Phoenician cities. The taxes paid by the
natives sometimes amounted to a half of their whole
produce,^ and among the Phoenician dependent cities
themselves we know that the lesser Leptis alone paid
into the Carthaginian treasury the sum of a talent
daily.* The tribute levied on the conquered Africans

* See Justin, xviii. 7. *Mago . . . cum primus omnium ordinata
disciplina imperium Poenorum condidisset.'

' Polybius, i. 72. 2. ' Livy, xxxiv. 62.

44 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

was paid in kind, as is the case with the Rayahs of
Turkey to the present day, and its apportionment and
collection were doubtless liable to the same abuses and
gave rise to the same enormities as those of which
Europe has lately heard so much. Hence arose that
universal disaffection, or rather that deadly hatred,
on the part of her foreign subjects, and even of the
Phoenician dependencies, towards Carthage, on which
every invader of Africa could safely count as his surest
support. Hence the ease with which Agathocles, with
his small army of 1 5,000 men, could overrun the open
country, and the monotonous uniformity with which
he entered, one after another, two hundred towns,
which Carthaginian jealousy had deprived of their
walls, hardly needing to strike a blow.* Hence, too,
the horrors of the revolt of the outraged Libyan mer-
cenaries, supported as it was by the free-will contribu-
tions of their golden ornaments by the Libyan women,
who hated their oppressors as perhaps women only
can, and which is known in history by the name of
the * War without Truce,' or the * Inexpiable War.'

It must, however, be borne in mind that the inhe-
rent differences of manners, language, and race be-
tween the native of Africa and the Phoenician incomer
were so great; the African was so unimpressible, and
the Phoenician was so little disposed to understand, or
to assimilate himself to his surroundings, that, even if
the Carthaginian government had been conducted
with an equity, and the taxes levied with a modera-
tion which we know was far from being the case,
a gulf profound and impassable must probably have

* Diod. Sic. XX. 17 ad fin.

WAS ROME OR CARTHAGE TO RULE? 45

always separated the two peoples. This was the fun-
damental, the ineradicable weakness of the Carthagi-
nian Empire, and in the long run outbalanced all the
advantages obtained for her by her navies, her ports,
and her well-stocked treasury; by the energies and
the valour of her citizens ; and by the consummate
genius of three, at least, of her generals. It is this,
and this alone, which in some measure reconciles us
to the melancholy, nay the hateful termination of the
struggle, on the history of which we are about to enter :

Men are we, and must grieve when e'en the name
Of that which once was great has passed away.

But if under the conditions of ancient society, and
the savagery of the warfare which it tolerated, there
was an unavoidable necessity for either Rome or
Carthage to perish uttterly, we must admit, in spite of
the sympathy which the brilliancy of the Carthagi-
nian civilisation, the heroism of Hamilcar and Hanni-
bal, and the tragic catastrophe itself call forth, that it
was well for the human race that the blow fell on Car-
thage rather than on Rome. A universal Carthaginian
Empire could have done for the world, as far as we
can see, nothing comparable to that which the Roman
universal empire did for it. It would not have
melted down national antipathies, it would not have
given a common literature or language, it would not
have prepared the way for a higher civilisation and an
infinitely purer religion. Still less would it have built
up that majestic fabric of law which forms the basis
of the legislation of all the states of Modern Europe
and America.

46 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

CHAPTER II.

CARTHAGE AND SICILY.

(735-310 B.C.)

Wars between Carthage and Sicilian Greeks — First appearance of
Greeks in Sicily — Their gradual spread — Battle of Himera — Second
Carthaginian invasion of Sicily — Third invasion and its incidents
— Exploits of Dionysius — Siege of Motye — Fourth invasion —
Strange vicissitudes and possible importance of the conflict —
Comparative merits of Greek and Carthaginian rule in Sicily —
Conflicting stories about Hamilcar at Himera —River Halycus fixed
as boundary— Timoleon — Magnificent Carthaginian armament —
Battle of Crimesus — Agathocles invades Africa and threatens
Carthage.

Before we enter on the history of the long struggle
between the Romans and Carthaginians for the pos-
session of Sicily, it is necessary to give some account
of the less known and much longer series of wars
which had been waged for the same object between
the Carthaginians and the Greeks. Our knowledge
of these wars comes to us, as was to be expected,
exclusively from Greek sources ; and the same cau-
tion with which we receive from the Roman writers
indiscriminate charges of cruelty and of bad faith
against their formidable antagonists in the Punic
Wars, is necessary, perhaps even more necessary, here.

THEIR WARS WITH SICILIAN GREEKS, 47

If we cannot often prove that the charges brought
are groundless, we can, at least, always remember
that they are one-sided. The light thrown by the
Sicilian Wars on the inner life of the Carthaginians
is scanty enough, but where our materials are so
meagre, we must make the best of even that little ;
and some facts, at least, come out which are alike in-
teresting and suggestive.

From very early times, as we have seen, the Phoe-
nicians had occupied every coign of vantage on the
coast of Sicily and its adjacent islands, and had from
thence carried on their peaceful warfare with the
natives of the interior.^ But about the eighth century
a still more adventurous and gifted people appeared
upon the scene. The Phoenicians, true to their general
policy, to attempt to hold nothing by war which they
could not hold without it, and to trade with those
countries only where trade was its own passport and
its own security, retired gradually before the incomers,
and would, very possibly, have disappeared altogether
from the island, had not Carthage, endowed as she
was with all the colonising and commercial aptitudes
of Tyre as well as with a capacity for empire which
Tyre never had, stepped into the place which the
mother-city declined to fill, and entered upon that
vigorous and aggressive policy which was one day to
make the Western Mediterranean a Carthaginian lake.

But the spread of the Greek colonies in Sicily
was not rapid. Naxos and Syracuse, Catana and
Leontini had been founded on its western coast, for,
perhaps, half a century before we hear of the Greeks

* Thiic. vi. 2.

48 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

at Gela, nor was it till another half-century or there-
abouts had passed away, that we find them at Himera,
and Selinus threatening, or seeming to threaten, the
Carthaginians in the western comer of the island to
which they had retreated.^ But Carthage was still
peacefully inclined. She loved a quiet life, and it was
not till after Mago, about 530 B.C., had extended her
home domain in Africa, and till Mago's son Hasdrubal
had annexed Sardinia, that any serious attempt was
made by her to recover the ground which had been lost

At the head of a vast and motley army, drawn
from all the countries to which the Carthaginian
fleets had access, Hamilcar, the second son of Mago,
landed in Sicily in the year 480. The great battle of
Himera lasted from morning to evening, and it
ended, as we have already seen, in the complete rout
of the Carthaginians.^ Hamilcar, who, throughout
the tattle, had, in his twofold capacity of Shofete
and commander-in chief, been sacrificing to the gods
of Carthage, when he found that his efforts were of no
avail, disappeared and was seen no more. The Car-
thaginians, with characteristic prudence, fell back
once again on the three original Phoenician fortresses
of Motye, Panormus, and Soloeis, and from their re-
tirement there looked on complacently for the next
seventy years at the incessant revolutions and coun-
ter-revolutions which were as the breath of life to
their ever restless yet ever prosperous Greek neigh-
bours.

At last in B.C. 410, the half-native and half-Trojan
city of Egesta, which, by its appeal to Athens for aid

* Thuc. vi. 3-4. « Herod, vii. 1 65-167.

THEIR SECOND INVASION OF SICILY. 49

against Selinus, had brought on Sicily and Greece
alike the calamities of the Syracusan expedition, made
a similar appeal to Carthage, and so kindled the flameis
of that new war or rather series of wars which, with
fitful intermissions, devastated the island for a century
and a half. The Carthaginians hesitated long, we
are told, before renewing the venture which, seventy
years before, had ended so disastrously.^ But at last
the die was cast. It was an evil day for the Greek
cities of Sicily. Hannibal, grandson of the Hamilcar
who had fallen at Himera, and therefore, as Diodorus
remarks,^ a born enemy of the Greeks, took the com-
mand. Selinus fell almost at the first attack ; its in-
habitants were slaughtered and its splendid walls and
temples levelled with the ground. The majestic
columns which it was long thought that nothing but
an earthquake could have overthrown, still show, it is'
said, marks of the Carthaginian crowbars which were
used to overturn them. Himera shared the fate of
Selinus.^ To a message from the Syracusans begging
that he would admit his prisoners to ransom and
spare at least the temples of the gods, Hannibal
replied that those who could not preserve their free-
dom must try their hands at slavery ; the gods had
already shown their anger with them by leaving their
towns.* Then, in an outburst of fanaticism, half
family and half national, he slaughtered 3,000 pri-
soners in cold blood on the spot on which his grand-
father had fallen.

' Diod. xiii. 43. ^ Ibid. loc. cit. : ^t5(r€» {kiaiKK-nv,

• Ibid. xiii. 56-58. * Ibid. xiii. 59, ad init,

£

so CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Sated with plunder and bloodshed, Hannibal
sailed back to Africa, but only to return three years
later to complete his work of devastation. The
splendid city of Agrigentum, with its vast population,
its prodigious temples, and its innumerable works of
art, fell, after a siege of seven months. The towns of
Gela and Camarina came next,. and from the whole
southern coast of Sicily Greek culture and civilisation
seemed to be blotted out. We turn away with dis-
gust from the details of so savage and barbarous a
Warfare ; but we must note, as we pass, one or two of
its more characteristic and suggestive incidents. Such
are the mutiny of Campanian mercenaries quelled by
the present of the rich gold and silver drinking-cups
which the body-guard of the Carthaginian general
had brought with them ; the wanton destruction of
the Agrigentine sepulchres by the besieging army ;
the religious terrors which followed— the heaven-sent
pestilence, the spectres of the outraged dead haunt-
ing the sentries at their posts, and the solemn sacri-
fice of a child to Baal by the general in command ;
the glorious works of art — the statue of Artemis at
Egesta,^ of the poet Stesichorus at Himera,* of Apollo
at Gela,^ of the bull of Phalaris at Agrigentum * —
carried off to Carthage or to Tyre. In vain did the
Syracusans try to stave off the storm by sending
troops half-way to meet it ; in vain did they depose
their incapable generals and bow their necks beneath
the yoke of the one man who in point of courage and

* Cicero, Verres, iv. 33. * Ibid. ii. 35.

• Diod. xiii. 108. * Ibid. xiii. 90.

EXPLOITS OF DIONYSIUS. 51

'ability seemed to be marked out as the saviour of
their state, the tyrant Dionysius. Syracuse itself, the
acknowledged head of the Greek cities of Sicily,
seemed about to fall ; but the ravages of the pestilence,
/vdiich carried off half the Carthaginian army, com-
pelled Hannibal to leave his task unfinished, and he
returned to Africa carrying with him the pestilential
taint which was to spread havoc in Carthage and its
neighbourhood.

It was now the turn of Dionysius to justify his as-
sumption of arbitrary power by the use he made of
it, and after a few years of strenuous preparation he
set forth on his mission of * liberation/ Every species
of cruelty which had been visited by the barbarous
mercenaries of Carthage on the unhappy Greeks was
now atoned for by the equally unhappy Carthaginians
who had settled in the southern parts of Sicily. On-
ward the tide of invasion flowed, swollen, as it
advanced, by the Greeks who were now able to
return to their devastated homes, till at length it
reached the westernmost comer of the island, and
found itself checked by the narrow arm of sea which
separates the island fortress of Motye from the main-
land.

The small garrison of Motye defended itself with
all the resolution of the Phoenician race, and the inci-
dents of the siege which followed — ^the mole thrown
out by Dionysius to connect it with the mainland, the
battering of its walls by new and unheard-of military
engines, such as the catapult, just then invented, the
huge moving towers, the diversions effected by the
fleets, the final assault, the desperate house-to-house

£ 2

52 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

fighting in the narrow streets, the flight for refuge to
the temples of the gods, the promiscuous pillage and
massacre, — all these incidents are characteristic of the
Phoenicians when driven to stand at bay, and remind
us, in some measure, now of the heroic resistance made,
in the following centufy, by the parent of Phoenician
cities to Alexander the Great, and now again, of
that. still more terrible resistance of despair to which
this history leads us up, and in which it finds its most
tragic conclusion.

The * liberator ' had all but done his work ; but
these were not the days when we know Carthage best
— the days of her vacillation and of half-hearted coun-
sels — they were the days of her strength and of her
pride. In spite of the havoc wrought by the plague in
Carthage and the surrounding country, another huge
host of 100,000 men started under Himilco for Sicily.
They recovered Eryx and Motye almost at a blow,
and within the course of a single year took Messana
at the other end of Sicily, and rolled back the tide of
invasion, on Syracuse itself. Seldom has the fortune
of war veered round so rapidly and so completely.
But the marshes of the Anapus were once more the
best and the last ally of Syracuse. A new pestilence
of unexampled fury broke out ; part of the Carthagi-
nian navy was destroyed by fire, and Himilco pur-
chased the safety of the remaining Carthaginians in
his army by the betrayal of all his mercenaries. It
was an act of baseness of which Dionysius himself and
even Hiero after him, were also guilty, and it is not
without parallel in the history of the Punic Wars,^ but

^ Zonaras, viii. 10.

. GREEK AND CARTHAGINIAN RULE. 53

it enables us in some measure to explain, what is
otherwise so difficult to account for, the sudden
collapse of the energies of Carthage when, once and
again, she seemed to be in the full career of success.

It is useless to speculate, but it is hardly possible
to resist the temptation to do so, as to what might
have been the consequence to Carthage, to Sicily itself,
to Rome, and to the world at large, had either party
succeeded altogether in the attempt in which each had
all but succeeded, within the term of these last three
years ; had Carthage, for instance, been able to push for-
ward her victorious career into Italy at the very time
when the Gaul was at the gates of Rome, or had Syra-
cuse been able to accomplish with ease in a single year,
what could hardly be accomplished, a century and a
half later, in a twenty-three years* war by all the power
of Rome. It is impossible to •Isay what might have
been the result in such a case ; but it is possible to
point out much, at least, which could hardly have
happened, and to realise to ourselves how entirely
different the conditions would have been under which
the struggle for universal empire, whoever might have
been the combatants, must have been carried on.

The horrors perpetrated by the Carthaginians and
the ferocity and treachery of some of their generals
are brought out into full relief by Diodorus and by
the earlier Sicilian historians, Philistus and Timseus,
who form his chief authorities. It is all the more im-
portant therefore to notice that Diodorus himself in-
advertently drops hints which show that if the merits
of Greek and Carthaginian rule in Sicily must needs
be compared, the advantage was not always, in the

54 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

judgment of the Sicilians themselves, on the side of
the Greeks. Many of the Sicilian Greeks, he tells us,,
migrated of their own free will, carrying their property
with them, from the Greek to the Carthaginian por-^
tion of Sicily, for they found, or fancied, at least, that
they would find, the rule of Carthage to be less op-
pressive than that of the tyrant Dionysius.^ On the
other hand, many Sicanians and Sicilians whom
Dionysius offered to transfer to Syracuse from the
neighbourhood of the Carthaginians, declined his
offer with thanks, preferring the Carthaginian rule to-
his ; while those tribes or towns which he had com-
pelled to join him went back again with alacrity
to Carthage as soon as she reappeared on the scene.^
In like manner when, at a moment's notice, Diony-
sius plundered the property of all the Carthaginians
resident in Syracuse, if is clear that the Carthaginians^
in spite of the provocation they had received, did not
make reprisals on the Greeks resident in Carthage.*
These indications may tend to strengthen the mis-
givings which are naturally suggested to us, when
we recollect the medium through which alone our in-
formation as to Carthaginian misgovernment comes.

There is another circumstance which is still more
suggestive. Of what followed the fatal battle of
Himera we have two versions : one of them by a lucky
chance, which is almost without a parallel in the
history of these wars, comes from the Carthaginians
themselves. It has been preserved by Herodotus^
and tells us that Hamilcar, when he found that the
battle of Himera had gone against him, flung himself

> Diod. xiv. 41. 2 Ibid. xiv. 55, 58. » Ibid. xiv. 76, 77. .

STORIES ABOUT HAMILCAR IN SICILY. 55

headlong, as a whole burnt offering, into the fire whidi
he had kindled, and that almost divine honours were
paid to his memory by a grateful country, alike
in Sicily and in the capital^ The other version is
that given us by the Greeks : that the Carthaginians,
unable to vent their anger, even on the lifeless corpse
of the unfortunate Hamilcar by nailing it, as they
sometimes did in similar cases, to a cross, vented it
on his innocent son Gescon, whom they banished for
life to the Greek town of Selinus.* Either of these
stories, or neither of them, or both of them, incon-
sistent as they seem with each other, may, among a
people so volatile as the Carthaginians, perhaps be
true. But the discrepancy is at least suggestive, and
it does not make us less sorry that in other cases
where we hear of anything to the discredit of Car-
thage, we are unable to balance the Greek by the
Carthaginian version of the story.

Other desultory attempts were made by the tyrant
Dionysius in his long reign of thirty-eight years to drive
the Carthaginians from Sicily, but without success ; and
the fitful struggle ended in a treaty which assigned to
Carthage all the territory which lay to the west of the
river Halycus. This river practically remained the
boundary between the contending parties for the next
hundred years ; but on two occasions during that
period the Carthaginians appeared in arms before the
walls of Syracuse. The first was in the time of the
best, the other of the worst of all its rulers.

\ Already the Carthaginians had gained possession
of the whole of the town of Syracuse except its island

' Herod, vii. 167. * Diod. xiii. 43.

56 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

■ i r* -' -- --■ --■ •

citadel of Ortygia, when the younger Dionysius, a
man as weak as he was wicked, made way for the
Corinthian Timoleon. Equally remarkable for his
courage and his gentleness, for his ability to command
and his readiness to obey, for the tenderness of his
affections and the sternness of his sense of duty, above
all for his absolute disinterestedness, Timoleon is the
highest ideal of one side, and that perhaps the noblest
side, of the Greek character. He had saved his
brother^s life in battle at the risk of his own, and
yet when that brother plotted against the lives and
liberties of his fellow-citizens he gave him over, in an
access of sublime patriotism, to the death he had de-
served.^ Such was the man who, summoned to an
arduous post which he would never have sought but
dared not decline, now appeared at Syracuse when its
fortunes were at its lowest ebb (B.C. 344).

The Carthaginians vanished for the time, but re-
appeared a few years afterwards at the head of one of
the most splendid armaments that they had ever put
into the field. It consisted of 70,000 infantry, of 1 0,000
cavalry, of a large number of war-chariots drawn by
four horses each, of 100 ships of war, and 1,000 trans-
ports laden with supplies and ammunition of every
kind.* But the armament was not less remarkable
for its composition than its size. The merchant
princes of Carthage, so often content to look at war
as a gigantic mercantile speculation, cared not, as a
rule, to risk their own lives when there were plenty
of barbarians who for a small sum of money were
willing to throw away theirs instead. It was doubtless

* Plutarch, Timoleon^ iv. and v. ^ Ibid. xxv. ; Diod. xvi. 77.

BATTLE OF CRIMESUS. $7

pleasanter for those who enjoyed h'fe, as did the
wealthy Cathaginians, when there was any risk to be
run, to do so, as the Greek proverb expresses it, *in
the person of a Carian.' But when real danger
threatened the State, it is a mere calumny to assert
that they were not ready to do battle in their own
persons and to fight, as their mercenaries hardly ever
fought, in defence of their hearths and homes. In this
pre-eminently patriotic armament there were, we are
told, no less than 10,000 native Carthaginians, all clad
in splendid panoplies and all carrying white shields,
conspicuous from afar, as if to mark them out as
targets for the enemy. Amongst them was the
famous 'Sacred band * of 2,500 chosen nobles in all
the bravery of their gold rings, their costly raiment,
and their drinking-vessels of solid gold and silver.

The battle which ensued, the Battle of the Crimesus,
is described with graphic detail by Diodorus^ and
Plutarch,^ who evidently had the testimony of eye-
witnesses before them. We seem, as we read, to be
moving in an atmosphere of poetry and of portent, of
miracle and of religious enthusiasm. It is the Battle
of Megiddo and the brook Kishon that we fancy that
we see ; it is the song of triumph of Deborah and of
Barak that we fancy that we hear. The parallel is
close indeed throughout.^ A tempest of rain and hail,
accompanied by lightning and thunder, broke with
extraordinary violence at the critical moment right in
the faces of the advancing Carthaginians. The stars

» Diod. xvi. 80. 2 piut. Ttm. 27, 28.

• It has been eloquently drawn out by Dean Stanley, yewish
Churchy vol. i. chap. 14.

58 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

in their courses fought against Carthage, and the
brook Crimesus, swollen in a few minutes to an angry
torrent, swept away in its waters the war-chariots^
and the plunging horses, and the heavy-armed foot
soldiers of the Carthaginians. Then, as at Megiddo^
* strength was broken down ' ; the Carthaginian
citizens in their heavy panoplies slipped in the mud
and fell to rise no more. The Sacred band stood
their ground, by the confession of the Greeks them-
selves, in a manner worthy of their privileges and re-
sponsibilities, and died, fighting bravely, to a man. The
camp and costly baggage fell into the hands of the vic-
tors, and Timoleon, laden with booty and with honour^
returned to Syracuse to live there as a simple citizen,
and after securing to his adopted country a period of
twenty-two years of prosperity and liberty and peace,
such as it hardly enjoyed either before or since, to be
regretted in his death as the * common father and
benefactor ' of all the Sicilians.^

Timoleon passed away and Syracuse once more
fell (B.C. 310) under the yoke of a tyrant as able and
as unscrupulous as the elder Dionysius. Bursting
through the Carthaginian squadron, which was
blockading him in his capital, with a heroism which
is almost unparalleled in warfare, Agathocles made
his way at the head of a few ships to Africa, and with
~a Carthaginian fleet following close behind him and
a Carthaginian army ready to receive him on his
landing, he made Carthage herself tremble for hec
safety. Once again the city poured forth, in its own de-
fence, its hoplites and its horsemen, its war-chariots and

* Plutarch, Timoleon^ xxxix. ^Scrircp var^p koiv^s.

AGATHOCLES THREATENS CARTHAGE. S^*

its Sacred band. But it was not till after Agathocles
had been for three years overrunning the open country,
till he had occupied an almost fabulous number of Car-
thaginian towns, and had kindled into a mighty blaze
the flame of discontent which was always smouldering
among the African subjects of the imperial city, that
he returned to Sicily to carry fire and sword into
other regions from which their Greek blood might
have been expected to protect them.^ The havoc
which Agathocles had wrought in Africa might be
repaired, and was soon repaired by the wealth and
energy of the Carthaginians ; but there was something
which no efforts of theirs could now undo. By his
invasion of Africa Agathocles had shown the way in
which Carthage could be best assailed. He had
probed the weakness of the Carthaginian empire to
the very bottom, and mightier men than he and a
mightier people than the Greeks of Sicily were, all
too soon, to follow in his footsteps.

* Diod. XX. 3, 55, 64 seq.

^ CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER III.

CARTHAGE AND ROME.

Rome and Carthage compared — Contrasted — Origin and growth of
Rome — Constitutional progress — Military progress — Conquest of
Etruscans, Gauls — Of Latins, B.C. 390— Of Samnites — Roman
methods in war — War with Pyrrhus — Rome brought face to face
with Carthage.

It is time now to take a glance at the origin and
rise of the younger city on the banks of the Tiber,
whose progress towards the dominion of the world
Carthage, and Carthage alone of the states of anti-
quity, was able seriously to delay. The history of
Rome is like, and yet unlike, that of Carthage. It is
like it, for we see in each the growth of a civic com-
munity which, from very small beginnings, under an
aristocratic form of government, and with slight
literary or artistic tastes, acquired first, by the force of
circumstances, the leadership of the adjoining cities,
which were akin to her in blood, and subsequently,
by a far-sighted policy, or by a strong arm, became
mistress, not only of them, but, by their aid, of all the
tribes whom Nature had not cut off from them by the
sea, the mountains, or the desert.

But Roman history is intrinsically unlike the Car-
thaginian, for the greatness of Rome rested not, as

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF ROME. 6i

did the greatness of Carthage, on her wealth, or her
commerce, or her colonies, or her narrow oligarchy,
but on the constitutional progress which, after a long
struggle, obliterated the mischievous privileges of an
aristocracy of birth and raised the commonalty to
a complete social and political equality with their
former lords. It rested on the grand moral qualities
which formed the groundwork of the Roman character
in its best times, earnestness and simplicity of life,
reverence for the sanctities of the family relations,
reverence for the law, reverence for the gods. It
rested on the extraordinary concentration of all these
qualities, together with the soundest practical ability
which the State contained, in the Senate, perhaps,
when taken at its best, the noblest deliberative as-
sembly which the world has ever seen. And when
the two orders in the State had become united and
Rome was fairly launched in her career as a con-
quering power, her greatness rested (how unlike to
Carthage !) on the real community of interest and of
blood which united her to the greater number of the
Italian tribes that she absorbed ; on the self-sacrifice
which bade her then, and for a long time to come, tax
not her subjects but herself ; on the wise precautions
which she took to secure their permanent allegiance,
partly by isolating them from one another, partly by
leaving them in some sense to govern themselves, or
by admitting them to a share, actual or prospective,
in the Roman citizenship.

The district originally occupied by the Latin race
which achieved such grand results was a small tract
of land, not larger than an English county, which lay

62 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

between the Tiber and the Anio on the north, aiid
the Alban Hills on the south, and the future capital
of the world was originally only one of thirty small
settlements, of which she was the first neither in anti-
quity, nor in strength, nor in natural advantages.
Alba and Lanuvium were older, Tusculum was
stronger, Tibur and Praeneste were more fruitful and
more salubrious than Rome. What circumstances
enabled Rome, built as she was on one of the least
healthy and least fertile spots occupied by the Latin
league, so soon to obtain a pre-eminent position
among them, we need not here inquire. The Roma
Quadrata on the Palatine Hill soon grew into Rome
of the Seven Hills. She encouraged migration to
herself from the adjoining cities of the league ; the
manumission of slaves, and the growth of commerce
and agriculture, soon gave her a dependent popula-
tion, which formed the origin of the plebeians ; and,
when the venerable Alba fell before the arms of
Rome, Rome naturally succeeded by the right of the
worthiest, as well as by the right of the strongest, to
all her privileges and dignities as president of the
Latin league.

It belongs not to our purpose here to trace the
vicissitudes of the long and eventful struggle be-
tween the privileged Patricians and the unenfranchised
Plebs ; to show in detail how the social grievances
of the lower orders — their exclusion from all share in
the public land for which they had shed their blood,
the caste jealousy which forbade a patrician to inter-
marry with one of a less sacred race — the atrocious
law of debtor and creditor, gave way, one after the

ITS CONSTITUTIONAL PROGRESS, 63

other, in spite of the armed opposition and the pre-
judices and the subterfuges of those patricians who,
as they alone profited by existing abuses, naturally
enough clubbed tc^ether to resist reform. Nor need
we relate at length how these same Plebeians, by the
heroism of their natural leaders, or their secessions to
ihe Sacred Mount, first obtained inviolable magis-
trates of their own, the Tribunes of the Plebs, with
powers so extraordinary that if the Roman people
had not been the most law-abiding people in the
world all public business must have come to a stand-
still; how the right of appeal from the arbitrary
sentences of the magistrate to the people assembled
in their Comitia, was again and again confirmed — even
as Magna Charta was again and again confirmed by
English kings — each fresh ratification rendering, no
doubt, the sanction more impressive, and using the
word ' people ' in a more comprehensive and a truer
sense ; how office after office, and dignity after
dignity, the Quaestorship and Military Tribunate, the
Consulship and the Senate itself, were thrown open to
the Plebeians, first in theory and afterwards in fact ;
how the Licinian Rogations, after nine years of party
warfare, ceased to be Rogations and became Laws ;
and how, finally, Camillus, the chief of the old
aristocracy, crowned the political edifice by what,
perhaps, rightly considered, is the greatest event in
the internal history of Rome, the dedication of the
famous Temple of Concord ^ (B.C. 367). It is incum-
bent on the student of the history of Carthage not so
much to analyse the process as to note the result of

' Plutarch, Camillus) 42, 4-7 ; cf. Livy, vi. 42.

64 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

this long constitutional conflict ; and that grand result
was that the two orders became indissolubly united,
socially and politically, into one nation, and were thus
prepared, whether for good or for evil, to assert their
natural supremacy over the rest of Italy, and then to
conquer the world.

Nor, again, does it fall within the scope of this
work to follow with any degree of minuteness the
early progress of the Roman arms. It must suffice
to trace only so much of its outline as may enable us
to judge of the true position of the conquering city,
when a wider field opened before her, and she had
to face, no longer the petty warfare of bordering
townships, nor even the collective strength of Samnite
and Etruscan confederations, but Carthage, Macedon,
and the East.

The expulsion of the kings (B.C. 509) left Rome
still a prey to internal discord, a circumstance of
which her nearest neighbours, the Etruscans, wholly
alien as they were to her in race, were not slow to
avail themselves. The Etruscan nation, with its
gloomy and mysterious religion, the solemn trifling
of its augural science, and the cruelty of its gladia*
torial games, was just then at the height of its power
by land and sea. Now was its opportunity ; and the
fond but soul-stirring romances of the ballad-singers
and annalists of early Rome have not been able
wholly to disguise the fact that the city itself fell
before the arms of Porsena.^ But the triumph of
Etruria was not long lived. A protracted warfare of
1 50 years succeeded, in which the star of Rome came

» Tac. Hist. iii. 72 : *dedit& urbe.*

ITS MILITARY PROGRESS. 6s

gradually into the ascendant, and the fall of Veii after
a ten years' si^e, and, still more perhaps, the hurri-
cane of Northern barbarians which just then burst
over the fairest plains of Italy, set Rome for ever free
from danger on the side of Etruria.

But Rome was delivered from the Etruscans only
(B.C. 390) to find that the Gaul was thundering at her
gates. The city was burned to the ground, her temples
desecrated, her historical records destroyed, her in-
habitants dispersed or slain ; but no such ephemeral
calamity could shatter the traditions or shake the reso-
lution of the Roman people. Rome rose, like the
phoenix, from her ashes, and started afresh on her
career of conquest. Her ancient enemies, the ^Equi-
ans and Volscians, who, according to the patriotic
narrative of Livy,* had for so many years in the
early history of the Republic been annually extermi-
nated and had annually revived to be exterminated
again, had long since died their last death as indepen-
dent nations. The Etruscans were now powerless ; the
last desperate effort of the Latins to restore, when it was
too late (b,C. 340-338), the equality of their ancient
league, was crushed in two campaigns, and Rome now
found herself face to face with the worthiest antagonists
she had yet met, the brave and hardy Sabellian race,,
which was akin to herself in blood, which had lately
almost annexed Campania, and which clung with des-
perate tenacity and with manners that never changed

' Cf. Livy, iii. 8. *Ibi Volscum nomen prope deletum est.' This
was in 292 B.C. In the following year (291 B.C.), we are told, *' Volscos.
et iEquos reficere exercitus,' c 10.

F

66 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

to the rugged mountains and the inaccessible defiles
of the Central and Southern Apennines.

The struggle is memorable for the deeds of he-
roism which mark its course on either side ; for the
stubborn resistance and chivalrous bravery of the
weaker, and, on more than one occasion, for the per-
fidy and the meanness of the stronger combatant. But
it is yet more remarkable, in the eye of him who would
read the story of the Punic Wars aright, for the light
it throws upon the true secret of the Roman strength
in war.

Never did the iron resolution and devotion of her
citizens, never did the unbending consistency of pur-
pose and the marvellous self-restraint of the Senate,
display itself more brilliantly. Without haste, but
without a pause, never elated by victory, never de-
pressed by defeat, not caring to overrun what they
could not hold by force of arms, or to obtain by treaty
what they could not take without it, willing to employ
years instead of months, and to conquer by inches
where they might have conquered by leagues, the
Roman Senate, slow but sure, held on the even tenor
of their course, determined only that where the Roman
eagles had once set down their talons, there they should
remain, till the time came to plunge them more deeply
into the vitals of the foe. Did Samnium at the close
of the great twenty-two years' struggle lie, to all
appearance, prostrate at the feet of Rome, the last of
her fortresses, Bovianum, in the grasp of the conqueror }
That conqueror concluded an equitable peace, on
terms of all but equal alliance,* not because she liked

* Livy, ix. 45 : * Fc3edus antiquum Samnitibus redditum.'

IVAR WITH PYRRHUS, 67

to spare the conquered — that maxim is to be found
only in the patriotic imagination of the author of the
** iEneid ' — but simply because she did not choose to
be brought face to face with Southern Italy before
she had made quite sure of Central. To build a new
fortress, to found a new military colony, to complete
a stage or two more of a great military road — if only
It could better secure what lay behind, and give a
vantage ground for future operations whenever the
time should come — ^this was the strictly practical ob-
ject of Rome when she took up arms ; this she kept in
view when smarting under a defeat ; and, what is
more remarkable, with this she rested content even
when flushed with victory. In this way, always aim-
ing only at what was feasible, making sure of every
inch of her way, drawing her iron network of colonies
and military roads over every district which she pro-
fessed to claim, Rome found herself at length (B.C. 293)
with not a single danger behind her, and with nothing
in front save some luxurious Greek cities, and some
insignificant tribes of Italian aborigines, to separate
her from that which was at once the object of her
highest hopes and of her most practical and stem
resolves, the union of the whole of Italy beneath her
3way.

We have said that there was but one obstacle to the
realisation of the aim of Rome ; but one other there
shortly appeared, which, as it had been beyond the
visible, so was it necessarily beyond the mental hori-
zon of so matter-of-fact a body as the Roman Senate.
The adventurous King of Epirus, whose erratic course
it would have required a genius like his own to have

F 2

6S CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

anticipated, shot down like a meteor on the scene
(B.C. 280). Fired with the ambition of emulating his
great relative Alexander, and of founding a vast
Greek empire in the west on the ruins of Italy and
Carthage, as Alexander had founded his on the ruins
of Persia and of Egypt, he eagerly seized the oppor-
tunity afforded him by the appeal of the frivolous
Tarentines, and offered to lead the Greek cities of
Italy in their opposition to Rome.

The struggle is rich, above most of those in which
Rome engaged, in the play of individual character and
in the traits of knightly chivalry and generosity,
which lend to it a charm which is altogether its own.
Even his sober-minded and severely practical enemies
could scarcely come into contact with so high-bred
and chivalrous a foe as Pyrrhus without catching some
sparks of his courtesy and his enthusiasm ; but the
struggle is also memorable as the first occasion in
which Greece and Rome met in the shock of battle.
Here for the first time might be seen the Roman
legion meeting the phalanx of Macedon ; a national
militia arrayed against highly trained and veteran
mercenaries ; individual military genius against col-
lective mediocrity. For a moment fortune seemed to
waver, or even to incline in favour of the adventurer ;
but she could not waver long. The victories of Heraclea
and Asculum must have made the name of Pyrrhus a
name to be spoken with bated breath even in the
Roman Senate ; and the lightning rapidity with which
he swept Sicily from end to end, cooping the Mamer-
tines in Messana on the extreme west, and the Phoe-
nicians in Lilybseum in the extreme east, must have

ROME FACE TO FACE WITH CARTHAGE, 69

made his name a name of terror even among the
burghers of Carthage. But the proud answer returned
by the Roman Senate to the embassy of Pyrrhus after
his first victory, that Rome never negotiated so long
as an enemy was on Italian soil/ must have at once
opened the eyes of the Epirot king to the hopeless
nature of the enterprise he had undertaken, and
marked triumphantly the goal to which centuries of
tempered aspiration and of impetuous resolve had
raised the Latin city. To the Roman mind an ideal
which could not be realised was no ideal at all, and
the Romans had now realised their highest ideal to an
extent which entitled them to take a wholly new point
of departure (B.C. 278).

PjTrhus disappeared from the western world almost
as rapidly as he had descended on it, crying with his
last breath, half in pity, half in envy, ' How fair a
battle-field are we leaving to the Romans and Car-
thaginians/ * He spoke too truly. The arena was
already cleared of its lesser combatants, and for some
few years there was, as it were, the hush of expecta-
tion, the audible silence of suspense, while mightier
combatants were arming for the fray, and the great
duel was preparing of which a hundred years would
hardly see the termination.

* Plutarch, Pyrrhus, xix. 5 ; Appian, Sam, ; Frag. 10. 2, 3.

* Plutarch, Pyrrhus, xxiii. 7. o%a,v k'Ko\%\.ico\k^v, & 4>Uo{, Kapxffioplois
Mtd 'Pwfiodou xaXodarpouf,

70 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST PUNIC WAR.

MESS AN A AND AGRIGENTUM,

(264-262)

Relations of Sicily to Carthage and Rome — Appeal of Mamertines for
aid — ^The question at issue — Importance of the decision — Romans
occupy Messana — They attack Syracuse — Results of first campaiga
— Romans ally themselves with Hiero — Carthaginians unprepared
for war — Agrigentum — Its siege — Its fate.

It is not the least striking testimony to the sense of
relief with which the nations of the west must have seen
Pyrrhus return to his own country, that the Romans
and Carthaginians, in the face of so redoubtable a foe^
had agreed to forget their mutual jealousies till such
time as he should transfer himself and his ambitious
schemes to another quarter of the globe. The second
victory of Pyrrhus over the Romans had been followed
by the appearance of a Carthaginian fleet off the
mouth of the Tiber, offering to the Roman Senate
their aid against him.* The offer was at first declined^
but shortly afterwards a close alliance was concluded,.

* Justin, xviii. 2. 1-3.

THEIR RELATIONS TO SICILY AND ROME. 71

■■.■■■■■■■.■■■■■—■■I-- — — — -- ■I.I — -■ ■■■■I— ■ ■^■■» I I J ,,

and the Carthaginian fleet, which had in vain at-
tempted to intercept Pyrrhus on his crossing into
Sicily, inflicted a heavy loss upon him as he hastily
retreated from it.^ But hardly had Pyrrhus turned
his back for the last time on Italy when the first note
of war between the nations so recently allied was
sounded. It came, as was to be expected, from that
fair island which, by its position, seemed to belong
half to Europe, half to Africa, and from that point in
it which lay actually within sight of Rhegium, the
town which was, as yet, the farthest outpost of the
Roman alliance. For more than a century past
Greeks and Carthaginians had been contending, with
varying success, for the possession of the island. Few
towns of any importance within its limits had escaped
destruction, fewer still had escaped a siege, and many
had been taken and retaken almost as many times
as there had been campaigns. On the whole, in spite
of the efforts of able leaders like Dionysius the Tyrant,
Timoleon, and Agathocles, fortune had favoured the
Carthaginians ; and the power of Syracuse, the head
of the Greek states, was now confined to the south-
eastern comer of the island.

But there was one town in the island, and that an
all-important one from its geographical position, which
had by a strange destiny ceased to be Greek without
becoming Carthaginian, and after outrziging Greek
and Carthaginian alike, and arousing their active hos-
tility, had now, to make matters better, appealed for
aid to a third power, which was destined to prove
mightier than either.

* Polybius, iii. 25; Plutarch, Pyrrhus^ xxiv. i; Appian, Sam, 12. Frag.

72 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

When Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, died (B.C.
289), his mercenary troops were disbanded, and a
body of them, on their way back to Campania, their
native country, treacherously seized Messana, which
had entertained them hospitably. They expelled or
3lew the male inhabitants, divided their wives and
children, and calling themselves the children of
Mamers, or Mars, proceeded to justify their name by
plundering or harrying all the surrounding country.^
Such outrages could not be overlooked by the
Carthaginians. Still less could they pass unnoticed
by the young king Hiero, who had lately obtained
the vacant throne of Syracuse by the best of titles,
the free choice alike of his comrades in arms and of
his fellow-citizens ; and he proceeded to lay siege to
the town. The Mamertine councils were divided. It
was clear that without allies they would not long hold
out against the powerful foes whose deadly hostility
they had provoked. One party among them was for
surrendering the place to the Carthaginians to keep
out the Syracusans ; the other was for invoking the
Romans to keep out both alike.^

Never was a question fraught with more import-
ant issues, moral and political, brought before the
Roman Senate ; and never did they shirk their respon-
sibility more shamefully. It is not perhaps so easy
to see what was the right thing to do as it is to see
that what the Roman Senate did was the very worst
thing that they could do. Were they, on the one
hand, to refuse to protect Italians who appealed to
them avowedly as the head of the Italian Confedera-

* Polyb. i. 7 ; Diod. xxi. Frag. 13. * Polyb. i. 8-10.

APPEAL OF MAMERTINES, 73

tion for aid against the Greeks and Carthaginians, and
to look calmly on while the city of Messana fell into the
hands of the Carthaginians to be used by them as a
standing menace to their power and a vantage ground
in the great conflict which could not now be far dis-
tant ? Or were they, on the other hand, to lull their
consciences to sleep, to turn round upon Hiero, their
ally, who had recently lent them his aid in getting rid of
the lawless banditti who had seized Rhegium as the Ma-
mertines had seized Messana, and to take under their
special protection a band of cutthroats on one side of
the straits, while they had just scourged and beheaded
every member of a similar, and perhaps a less guilty
band, on the other? It was a question beset with
difficulties. National honour and common gratitude
pointed clearly in one direction ; ambition and imme-
diate interest pointed as clearly in another, and the
Roman Senate took the most ignoble course of all
open to it, that of shifting the responsibility from
their own shoulders to that of the people assembled
In their Comitia. The consuls Appius Claudius
Caudex and M. Fulvius Flaccus were ambitious
men, eager for war at any price. It was easy for
them to raise a patriotic cry of Italians against
foreigners, and to hold out visions of assignations
of public land amongst the rich fields of Sicily to
the multitude whose appetite for such booty had
been recently whetted by the large distributions of
land in Italy. The decision of the people was not
doubtful ; and the most momentous resolution ever
arrived at by the Romans was taken without either
the definite sanction or the explicit disapproval of the

74 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Senate (B.C. 264).* It was possible for the Senate,
perhaps, by such paltry conduct to deprive themselves
of some of the credit which might ultimately be won
by the war. It was not possible to relieve themselves
of the shame of its commencement.

Nor was the step now taken less serious from a
political than from a moral point of view, for, in truth,
upon the passing of the narrow arm of sea which
rages between Italy and Sicily hinged the future
destinies of both countries ; and not of these alone,
but of the ancient civilised world. Hitherto the policy
of the Roman Senate had been definite and strictly
practical, and had not carried them beyond the hori-
zon of Italy proper. If they had owned ships of war
at all, they had been of a small size and built upon an
antique model. Now, for the first time, they were
about to set foot beyond the seas, to embark upon a
policy the course of which it would no longer rest
with them to determine ; to claim, without ships of
their own, from the greatest of naval powers, a por-
tion of the island which had for centuries been looked
upon as her peculiar appanage. Some clear-sighted
men there must have been among the Roman senators
who recoiled from the results of what they had done,
or rather from the results of what they had refrained,
through moral cowardice, from doing ; but their voices
were not heard, and active operations began. War, in-
deed, against Carthage was not formally declared, for
the diplomatists of either nation had yet to go through
the solemn farce which usually precedes such a declara-
tion by raking up forgotten grievances or inventing new

* Polybius, i. lo. 1 1 ; Livy, Epit. xvi ; Zonaras, viii. 8.

ROMANS OCCUPY MESS ANA. 75

ones to justify the resolution which had been already
taken; but orders were given at once to relieve Messana.*
The command was committed to Appius Claudius
(B.C. 264), more easy work being found for his col-
league, Flaccus, nearer home. The want of ships of
war, and even of transports — for, by a strange short-
sightedness, the Romans had allowed such ships as
they had to fall into decay at the very time when they
most needed them — was met by borrowing them from
the Greek cities of Italy, Tarentum. Locri, Velia, and
Neapolis;* but a more serious difficulty occurred when
Claudius, the legate of the consuls and forerunner of
the Roman army, appeared at Rh^um. Things
had taken an unexpected turn at Messana. The party
favourable to Carthage had got the upper hand, and
the Carthaginian fleet was riding at anchor in the
harbour, while a Carthaginian garrison was in posses-
sion of the citadel. Here was an awkward predica-
ment for the Romans ; but C. Claudius was, like most
of his family, a man of energy and audacity. He
crossed the straits at the peril of his life, invited the
admiral, Hanno, to a conference, and then, in de-
fiance of the law of nations and of honour, took him
prisoner, and allowed him to purchase his liberty and
life only by the surrender of the citadel. Hanno*s
life was not worth the price he paid for it ; for the
Carthaginians, enraged at his cowardice and incapa^
city, condemned him to be crucified — a punishment
which was not very exceptional in their administra-
tion of justice, but was certainly not always so well

* Polybius, i. ii. 3 ; Floras, ii. 2. 1-5.

* Polybius, i. 20. 13, 14.

76 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

deserved.^ The Mamertines, who w^re equally ready
to follow anyone who seemed able to promise them
the lives which by their crimes they had so justly for-
feited, were now besieged in Messana from the north
5ide of the city by a second Hanno, whom the Car-
thaginians had sent out to replace the first, while
Hiero attacked it from the south.

Such was the condition of affairs when Appius
Claudius himself appeared with his army upon the
scene. How he managed to cross the straits with
20,cxx> men in the face of an enemy whose proud
boast it was that without their leave no Roman could
€ven bathe his hands in the sea, we do not know.*
But cross them he did, and by a double victory on
two successive days, first over Hiero, and then over
the Carthaginians, he succeeded in raising the siege,
and, after ravaging the country in every direction,
pitched his camp under the walls of Syracuse and
prepared to besiege Hiero in his own capital. But
two hundred years of internecine warfare with the
Carthaginians had not predisposed the Syracusans to
take any very strong measures in defence of their
temporary alliance with them. Appius suffered,
as had so often been the case in previous sieges of
Syracuse, far more from the malaria of the marshes
of the Anapus than from any active hostility of
Hiero ; and when the Romans thought fit to retreat
towards Messana from so unhealthy a region, and
Avere followed closely by the Syracusans, Hiero found
that the troops of the rival armies were more disposed

* Polybius, i. 1 1. 4, 5 ; Zonaras, viii. 9.
' Polyb. i. II. 9 ; Zonaras, viii. 9.

RESULTS OF FIRST CAMPAIGN. , yy

to meet in friendly gatherings at the outposts than in
hostile array in the battle-field.*

So ended the first campaign. With one small
army the Romans had already attained the ostensible
objects of the war. The Mamertines had been re-
lieved, the protectorate of Rome over them asserted,
much booty had been gained, the Carthaginians had
been driven back towards the north-west, and the
Syracusans towards the south-east of the island.
Why did not Rome stop here } Why was she not
content to rest upon her laurels and to retain in her
own hands, or in those of the Mamertines who were
now devoted to her interests, the intermediate state
of Messana, which would henceforward serve as a
buffer against any hostile designs of the Cartha-
ginians? Could the Romans have foreseen the
heavy reverses and the * Cadmean victories * of the
twenty-three years' war which was to drag out its
tedious length after so brilliant a beginning, they
might well have hesitated to purchase at so heavy a
price an island which, by the time it came into their
hands, would be hardly, in itself, worth possessing.
But once more the horizon of the Senate had ex-
panded with their achievements; and, no longer
content with securing the comer of Sicily nearest
to themselves, they had conceived the design of
stripping Carthage and Syracuse alike of so much of
their Sicilian possessions as would render them for
ever innocuous neighbours. Where one small army
had achieved so much in the face of every obstacle,
physical and moral, what might not two consular

* Polyb. i. 12 ; Diod. Sic. Frag, xxiii, 9.

78 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

armies accomplish, especially when supported by
powerful allies in the island itself, whose fidelity was
secured by the strongest of securities ?

The second campaign was not less successful than
the first. There was now no rumour of disturbance
in the neighbourhood of Rome ; and the two consuls,
M' Octacilius and M* Valerius, were able to cross to-
gether into Sicily with their united armies amounting
to 3S,cxx> men. They met with no serious resistance ;
fifty, or, as others said,* sixty-seven, towns belonging
to Hiero or the Carthaginians submitted to them ; and
Hiero himself, consulting, partly, no doubt, the wishes
of his subjects, partly his own feelings of hatred
towards the hereditary oppressors of his country,
turned from the setting to the rising sun and made
overtures of peace to Rome. The Romans were
keenly alive to the advantages which an alliance with
Syracuse would bring them while they were waging
war in the interior of the island ; their supplies — the
point in which they were most deficient — would be
secured by the immediate neighbourhood of so
opulent a friend. But the Senate thought fit to
assume the air of those who were conferring a favour,
and managed to drive a hard bargain with the Syra-
cusan king. Perhaps a power which was in the full
tide of success could hardly have been expected to
act otherwise. Hiero was compelled to pay a war
contribution of 200 talents and to surrender several
of his towns ; and he became henceforward to the end
of his long life and reign, to all appearance, the grate-
ful, and certainly the faithful and the trusted ally of

' Eutropius, ii. 19.

CARTHAGINIANS UNPREPARED FOR WAR. 79

Rome. Under his wise and beneficent rule, Syracuse,
though war was surging round her by land and sea,
enjoyed a degree of prosperity and of internal quiet
to which, with the one exception of the time of Timo-
leon; it may perhaps be said, she had, been a stranger
for two centuries before, and which she has never
enjoyed since. ^

But where were the Carthaginians all this time ?
Two campaigns had been fought and won, and they
had nowhere yet shown themselves in force. They
had allowed themselves, with hardly a struggle, to be
swept from the larger half of the island. Would they
allow themselves to be swept without resistance from
the remainder } The truth is that they were neither
inactive nor cowardly. They were simply, owing to
the defects of their military system, unprepared ; and
they were all this time straining every nerve to raise
a force in Africa, in Liguria, in Spain, and in Gaul,
which they hoped might eventually be able to strike
a vigorous blow and to retrieve their fortunes.^

About half way between the promontories of
Lilybaeum and Pachynus, and drawn back a mile or
so from the southern coast, was the important city of
Agrigentum. It had once boasted a population of
200,000 souls ^ — a fact to which the size and extent of
its majestic ruins still bear witness — and though its
ruthless destruction by the Carthaginians (B.C. 405),
which has already been described,* and the misgovern-
mentof domestic tyrants had shorn it of much of its
grandeur and prosperity, it had been refounded by

* Polyb. i. 15-16 ; Diod. xxiii. Frag. 5 and 9 ; Floras, ii. 2. 6 ;
Zonaras, viii. 9. * Polyb. i. 17. 4-5 ; Zonaras, viii. 10.

■ Diod. Sic. xiii. 90. * See p. 50.

8o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Timoleon/ and was still at the time of the First Punic
War the second Greek city in Sicily, and was able to
give shelter to a garrison of 50,000 men. Here
Hannibal, son of Cisco, concentrated the forces which
had been gathered from such distant countries ; here
he determined to make a stand in the field, and be*
hind its bulwarks, after collecting vast stores of
provisions and of materials for war, he was prepared,
if need be, to stand a siege. Hither also came all the
forces which the Roman Senate thought necessary
to deal with a foe who during two campaigns had
seemed anxious only to keep himself out of sight — a
small army, so it is said, of two legions only!^ That
this army, however, was on second thoughts judged
to be too small and was doubled in size is clear from
the fact that both consuls are mentioned as having
taken part in the siege, and doubtless the Mamertines
and Syracusans made the total much larger still.'

The consuls of the year were L. Postumius and Q.
Mamilius (B.C. 262) ; they pitched their camp eight
stadia from the town and imprudently sent out their
troops in large numbers to forage in the surround-
ing country. Hannibal seized the opportunity, and
only the heroism of some Roman pickets who, to
allow time for the foragers to get back into the
camp, died to a man, fighting bravely at their posts,
saved the Romans from disaster.* It is not the only
occasion in this war which proves that the far-famed
sentry of Pompeii who preferred, with visor down, to
be overwhelmed by the lava torrent at his post rather

^ Plutarch, Tiniolem^ 35. ^ Polyb. i. 17. i.

• Ibid. i. 17. 6. * Ibid. i. 17. 9-13.

SIEGE OF AGRIGENTUM, 8r

than leave it with the flying citizens, was no isolated
or exceptional example of Roman heroism. He only
acted as every Roman was brought up to act as
a matter of course, and as few ever failed to act, when
the emergency arrived. Both sides now displayed
greater caution. The Carthaginians contented them-
selves with harassing the Romans with missiles from
a distance, while the Romans broke up their army
into two separate camps, connected by a double line
of entrenchments — the one to protect them against the
sallies of the besieged, the other to guard against
possible dangers from the rear. The town of Erbessus,
a few miles to the north, supplied them with abundant
provisions, and seemed to remove famine, at all events,
from the list of contingencies to which they might be
exposed. In this state of things five months passed
away, and to all appearance the siege was no nearer
a successful termination than at the beginning ; but
provisions had begun to fail in the closely-packed
quarters of the defenders, and in deference to the
urgent solicitations of Hannibal, Hanno was sent to
Sicily with a new army, and with orders, if possible,
to compel the Romans to raise the siege. Making
Heraclea his headquarters, Hanno managed to sur-
prise Erbessus and so cut off the supplies of the
enemy. The Romans now found themselves in the
position of besieged rather than besiegers. Pestilence
as well as famine was at work in their lines, and it was
the extraordinary energy of Hiero in supplying them
with provisions when Erbessus fell, which alone pre-
vented them from giving up the enterprise in despair.*

» Polyb. i. i8.
G

82 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Decisive operations could not now be long de-
layed. In a preliminary engagement the Roman
horse experienced, for the first time, the superiority of
the famous Numidian light cavalr>- ; but in the battle
which ensued the motley Carthaginian infantry found
that they were, as yet, no match for the soldiers of the
legion. Fifty elephants — wild beasts Polybius, with
an air of horror, still calls them — fought on the side
of the Carthaginians, a number many times as great
as that which a few years before, in the time of Pyr-
rhus, had carried dismay and confusion into the Roman
ranks ; but on this occasion, as often afterwards, ele-
phants were found to be a two-edged weapon, which
might be fatal to the hand that wielded it. Thirty
of the fifty were killed, and eleven remained alive in
the hands of the Romans, as vast moving trophies of
the victory that had been won. Hanno saved a rem-
nant of his army by his hasty flight to Heraclea, and
Hannibal, whom the Romans looked upon as already
within their grasp, sheltered by the darkness of a
winter's night, and help*ed by the energy of despair,
made a last effort to break through the lines of his
victorious foe. The Romans, overcome with fatigue,
or giving the reins to their joy, had relaxed their
vigilance. With bags stuffed with straw Hannibal
filled up the deep trenches, scaled the ramparts, and
managed with the effective part of his army to pass
through the Roman lines unobserved. In the morn-
ing the enemy, discovering what had happened, went
through the form of pursuing the retreating Hannibal ;
but they were more eager to fall on the unhappy town
which he had abandoned to their mercy. The in-

FALL OF AGRIGENTUM. 83

habitants surrendered at discretion, but they had to
undergo all the horrors of a place taken by storm.
The town was given up to plunder, and 25,000 freemen
were sold into slavery. Nothing throughout the whole
of Sicily now remained in the hands of the Cartha-
ginians save a few fortresses on its western coasts ;
and this was the precise moment at which, according
to the explicit statement of Polybius,* it first dawned
upon the Romans that they had embarked upon a
war the true and only object of which must be to
eject the Carthaginians altogether from the island.

* Polyb. i. 19, 20, 1-2 ; Zonaras, viii. 10.

o a

84 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER V.

FIFIST ROMAN FLEET. BATTLES OF MYL^ AND

ECNOMUS.

(262-256 B.C.)

Carthaginian naval supremacy — Roman naval affairs— Commercial
treaties with Carthage — Difficulties of Romans — Want of ships of
war — Want of sailors— The new fleet — its first ventures — Naval
science and tactics of the Ancients — The Corvus — Battle of Mylse —
Honours paid to Duillius — Egesta — The Romans attack Sardinia
and Corsica — Energy of Carthaginians — Romans resolve to invade
Africa — Enormous naval armaments — Route taken by the Romans
^order of battle — Battle of Ecnomus.

If the resolution now come to by Rome was to be
carried out, it was clear that a complete change in
the conduct of the war would be necessary. The
Carthaginians had at length begun to put forth
their real strength, and to assert the supremacy
over the seas which had, in fact, never ceased to
belong to them. With a fleet of sixty ships they
coasted round Sicily, and by sheer terror, with-
out striking a blow, brought back to their allegiance
many towns which had gone over to Rome. The
Romans might retain their grip on the interior of the
island, but the coasts, it was clear, would belong to

CARTHAGINIAN NAVAL SUPREMACY. 85

Carthage so long as she remained mistress of the seas.
Nor was this all. By making frequent descents at
distant points on the Italian coast, the Carthaginian
fleet kept the inhabitants of the sea-bord in a state of
constant alarm, which it was quite beyond the power
of any land forces raised by the Italians themselves
to allay ; for by the nature of the case the Cartha-
ginians, choosing, like the Northmen centuries after-
wards, their own place and time, were able to destroy
a town, or to harry a district, before alarm could be
given to the nearest military station.* It was appa-
rent that the war might go on for ever, each of the
combatants being able to annoy and injure, but not
to paralyse or destroy, the other, unless something
should occur to change the conditions under which it
was being carried on. The Carthaginians wanted
only, what they had not yet succeeded in finding, a
first-rate general, to enable them to make a descent
in force in Italy, and so make Rome tremble for her
own safety. The Romans wanted only an efficient
fleet to enable them to meet Carthage on her own
element, and then to transfer the contest to Africa.
The all-important question was which would be found
first. A life-and-death struggle generally finds out,
and brings to the front, in spite of all artificial ob-
stacles, a true military genius, even amongst a people
whose collective genius is not military ; but it has very
rarely been known to change the whole character of
a people at once, to transform land-lubbers into sea-
men, and, what is more extraordinary still, to enable
them to cope on equal terms with the greatest naval

» Polyb. i. 20. 5-7.

86 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINANIS.

. — . — ^—

power of the time. The chances therefore were, so
far, not in favour of Rome.

But we must beware of indulging in the exagge-
rations in which it was natural enough for Polybius
and other historians of the time to indulge, in their
admiration of the energy of Rome. What the Ro-
mans did was wonderful enough without the addition
of a single fictitious detail to make it more so. It
may be true, as Polybius says, that at the outbreak of
the war Rome had no decked ships, no ships of war,
no, not even a lembus — a small ship's boat with a
sharp prow — which they could call their own.^ But
that the Romans were not so wholly ignorant of naval
affairs as the ludicrous picture of a hundred batches
of would-be sailors, training themselves to row on the
sand, from scaffolds, would at first suggest, is clear
from the fact that Rome had in the early days of the
Republic fitted out ships with three banks of oars to
keep in order piratical neighbours like the Antiates
or the Etruscans ;^ that there were magistrates, called
Duumviri navales^ who, from time to time, were ap-
pointed for the express purpose of repairing the fleet ;
and that the Carthaginians themselves had thought
it worth their while repeatedly to form a commercial
treaty with the Romans, restricting carefully their
mutual rights and duties.

* The Romans and their allies shall not sail beyond
the south of the Fair Promontory (that is, the well-known
Hermaean promontory to the north-east of Carthage)
unless compelled by stress of weather or an enemy ;
and, if so compelled, they shall not take or purchase

» l>olyb. L 20. 13. a Cf. Livy, viii. 14 ; ix. 38.

DIFFICULTIES OF ROMANS. 87

anything, except what is barely necessary for refitting
their vessels, or for sacrifice, and in any case they
shall depart within five days/ So runs one of the
articles of the commercial treaty made, it is said,
while Rome was as yet hardly the undisputed head
of the Latin league, in B.C. 409, hardly a year after
the expulsion of the kings ;^ and a second treaty,
concluded, according to Polybius, 131 years later, in
B.C. 348, shortly after the passing of the Licinian
Rogations, contains similar but still more jealous
stipulations. In it the Roman vessels are precluded
— and the mere fact of the prohibition is a proof of
the extent of Roman maritime enterprise — not only
from the rich emporia on the Lesser Syrtis, but from
the navigation of the Atlantic, and from all commer-
cial dealings with the subjects of Carthage in Africa
and Sardinia.^ Still the Romans had never been a
really maritime or commercial people ; they did not
love the sea, much less had they been a naval power ;
and how were they to become so all at once }

The question was beset with difficulties. Triremes
no doubt they might borrow from the Greek cities of
Italy, as they had done once before ; but these would
no more face the bulky monsters, called quinqueremes,
which now formed the Carthaginian ships of the line,
than an English revenue cutter could board a frigate.
The Romans must have felt all the needs, upon a
vaster scale, which dawned upon a people as land-
loving and as exclusive as themselves, when the

^ Polyb. iii. xxii. The date is given by Polybius. Mommsen, for
reasons which he gives at length, refers the treaty to 348 B. c. {Kom,
Hist. i. p. 426 and 442-444.) * Polyb. iii. 24.

88 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

conquest of Ezion Geber opened to the untravelled
Israelites the navigation of the Red Sea, and the un-
known possibilities of the East beyond it. But to the
Hebrew subjects of King Solomon a way out of the
difficulty was open which was not available to the
Romans now. The gold of Solomon was able to
procure Phoenician shipwrights who could construct,
and Phoenician mariners who could navigate and steer,
his vessels among the dangerous waters of the Red
Sea and the Indian Ocean. The descendants of these
selfsame Phoenicians, the heirs of their traditions and
of a double portion of their maritime genius, were the
deadly enemies of Rome, and the Roman landsmen
must face the dangers of the sea, not with their aid,
but against their most strenuous opposition.

Again, the quinquereme was not merely twice
as large as a trireme, but was of a different build
and construction. It was necessary, therefore, to ob-
tain either shipwrights or a model from some nation
to which such moving castles had been long familiar.
There were ships of the line enough, no doubt, in the
fleet of the Macedonians — their original inventors —
or in that of the Egyptians ; but to procure ship-
wrights or a model of a quinquereme from them
would be difficult in time of war, and would involve
a serious and perhaps a dangerous delay. Here
chance was on the side of the Romans. A Cartha-
ginian quinquereme had run ashore on the coast of
Bruttium two or three years before, and had fallen
into the hands of the Romans.^ This served as the
wished-for model ; and it is asserted by more than one

* Polyb. i. 20. 15.

THE NEW FLEET. 89

writer that within sixty days a growing wood was
felled and transformed into a fleet of a hundred ships
of the line and twenty triremes.^

The next difficulty was to find men for the fleet,
and when they had found them to train them for
their duties. How the large number of 30,000 rowers
necessary to propel the ships, and of 12,000 marines
necessary to fight on board of them, were raised, in
so short a time, from a people that was not a seafaring
people, we have no precise information ; but as soon
as they had been got together, and while the building
of the ships was still in progress, they went, if we may
believe the well-known story, through a course of
training for the most important of their functions,
that of rowing in time at the voice of the Keleustes
by taking their seats on tiers of stages, and by making
believe to go through the various evolutions which
would be expected of them.^

Probably never did a fleet set sail under greater
difficulties of every kind than did this. The starting
timbers of the unseasoned wood of which the ships
were built, and the distressing maladies which would
assuredly befall a herd of landsmen who had gone
through only the mechanical preparation for the sea
which we have described, might well have made men
doubt whether either ships or crews would ever live
to experience the shock of the Carthaginian battle.
But we hear nothing of this. Perhaps, after all, the
ships were manned in part not by Romans, but by
Greek and Etruscan mariners ; and we know only

' Pliny, Hist, Nat,^ xvi. 192 ; Floras, ii. 2-7.
* Polyb. i. 21. I, 2.

90 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

that hardly were the ships launched when they fear-
lessly set sail (B.C. 261).

M. Cornelius Scipio went forward with the van-
guard of seventeen vessels, leaving the other consul,
M. Duillius, behind to superintend the equipment of
the main body of the fleet, and afterwards to take
the command of the army. He reached Messana in
safety ; but a message from Lipara, the largest of the
group of islands of that name to the N.E. of Sicily,
which belonged to Carthage, induced him to cross
over to receive,* as he thought, its submission. He
had no sooner entered the harbour than he found his
retreat cut off by twenty Carthaginian vessels which
had been sent for that purpose by Hannibal, the
admiral at Panormus. The crews were seized with a
sudden panic, and with true landsmen's instincts made
for the friendly shore which was close at hand. Cor-
nelius, who earned for himself the name of Asina by
the ease with which he had fallen into the trap which
had been laid for him, stuck gallantly to his post, and
was taken prisoner, together with the empty vessels
of his fleet. This was not a promising beginning for
the Romans ; but imprudence and incapacity were not
confined to them. The Carthaginian admiral, elated
by his success, determined to intercept the whole
Italian fleet as it sailed down the coast towards Mes-
sana. He fell unexpectedly into their midst when
his ships were in disorder, and he himself escaped with
difficulty, leaving the greater number of his vessels in
the hands of the enemy .^

The Carthaginians had been disposed at first to

* Polyb. i. 21 ; Florus, ii. 2.

NAVAL TACTICS OF THE AXCIEXTS. 91

laugh at the idea of the Romans venturing to face
them in their o\i*n element; and though the laugh had
now, for the moment at all events, been turned against
themselves, the Romans were much too clear-sighted
not to see that it was chance and the imprudence of
the enemy which had been their best ally in this first
engagement, and that the Carthaginians, having been
caught napping once, would be sure to be more wide
awake in future. Dr. Arnold remarks that the naval
service of the ancients generally was, out of all pro-
portion, inferior to their land service. The seamen
were of a lower class ; the ships were propelled in
battle by oars alone ; engines for the discharge of
missiles were unknown or unused ; and the charge
with the beak was the only recognised method of
attack.^ The remark is a just one, and it applies, in
its measure, to the nations which were foremost as well
as to those which were more backward in naval affairs.
But the skill in naval warfare which the Carthagi-
nians had acquired in centuries could not be learnt by
Rome in a day. There are many points connected
with the equipment and management of an ancient
trireme which have not been cleared up ; but it is
certain from the nature of the case itself, as well as
from the detailed account of the engagements in the
Corinthian Gulf contained in the second book of
Thucydides, that even for the simple manoeuvres
practised by the ancients, the emboUy or charge on
the side, and the prosbole, or charge beak to beak,
the peripluSy and the diecplus, there was an in-
calculable difference between trained and untrained

' Arnold, Rom, Hist,^ ii. 573-574.

92 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

rowers. ' No Peloponnesian fleet/ Phormion told his
men, and told them truly, 'whatever its numbers,
could possibly contend against them with success;'^
and his repeated victories showed that neither num-
bers, nor personal valour, nor discipline could be of
any avail against the superior skill in manoeuvring
which the Athenians had attained during the fifty
years that had passed since the fight at Salamis.

It must also be borne in mind that the ancient
rowers had often to contend in battle against wind and
tide as well as against the foe — for the sails and masts
were always cleared away as a preparation for action
— and if the sea was running high, the utmost nicety
in steering and the most perfect time and skill in
rowing would be essential to the success of even the
simplest manoeuvre. There was nothing but the voice
of the Keleustes to keep the three tiers of rowers,
ranged one above the other, with their oars of different
weights and different lengths, in time, and that voice
would necessarily be drowned by the least excitement
or confusion amongst the crews. If such careful
training was found to be essential for the manage-
ment of the trireme, what must it not have been for
the quinquereme, a ship nearly twice the size, with
five banks of oars instead of three }

The immediate problem, therefore, for the Romans
to solve was not how best to train their crews to charge
with the beak — for no training would have fitted them
for that before the engagement which was imminent —
but how best to parry that charge, and then to convert
the naval into a land battle, leaving as little oppor-

> Thuc. ii. 89-92.

THE CORVUS, 93

tunity as possible for subsequent manoeuvring, and as
much as possible for hand-to-hand conflict. The device
which the Romans adopted to secure these ends was
clumsy, but it was efl'ectual. On the fore part of each
vessel was erected an additional mast, and lashed to
it by a powerful hinge at a height of 12 feet above the
deck, was a species of drawbridge, rising, when it stood
erect, 24 feet above it. At the top of the mast was a
pulley, through which ran a rope connecting it with
the higher end of the drawbridge. On the end of
this last and standing out from it at right angles was
a sharp spike of the strongest iron, which, from its re-
semblance, when in this position, to the bill of the
raven, gave the name of Corvus to the whole con-
struction. When an enemy's vessel was seen ap-
proaching for the purpose either of charging directly
beak to beak, or of striking obliquely the tiers of oars,
and so of incapacitating them for further use, the draw-
bridge, by an ingenious contrivance, could be swung
round the mast towards the point where the danger
threatened ; and the moment the enemy came within
reach, it could be let fall from its commanding height
and with its heavy weight upon the deck of the at-
tacking ship. The iron beak would pierce through
the planking of the deck and hold it fast in a death-
grapple. The drawbridge was 4 feet broad, and was
furnished with parapets reaching as high as the knee.
The Roman mariners could therefore descend along it
two abreast in continuous columns, the foremost pair
defending themselves completely by holding in front
their oblong shields, while those who followed were pro-
tected in flank partly by the parapets and partly by

94 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

their small round shields.^ In this way, in a very few
moments from the time the Corvus fell, the whole
body of the Roman mariners would find themselves
on board the enemy's deck. The sea fight would be
practically over, and the land fight would begin, and
the issue of this conflict between the * mere rabble of
an African crew ' and picked Roman legionaries, could
not be for a moment doubtful. Much ingenuity has
been expended on the question of the purpose that
could be served by fixing the lower end of the draw-
bridge so high up the mast, and therefore so incon-
veniently high above the deck. But the explanation
seems to lie in the fact, which, perhaps, has escaped
us because it was so obvious, that the ships of both
Romans and Carthaginians had bulwarks, and to
enable the Corvus not merely to catch them as by a
hook but to penetrate the deck itself with its spike, it
was necessary that the base of the drawbridge should
be at a greater height than the bulwarks over which
it would have to fall. A light ladder fixed on the
side of the mast opposite to the Corvus and, doubt-
less, revolving with it, would give easy access to the
boarding bridge at the moment when it was required.
C. Duillius, hearing of the calamity that had be-
fallen his patrician colleague at Lipara, left the con-
trol of the army — a matter, as it seemed now, of less
moment — to inferior officers, and assumed the far
more critical post of admiral of the fleet. Finding
that the enemy were engaged in ravaging Mylae, a
peninsula and town on the north-west of the island,
not far from Messana, he sailed fearlessly towards

* Polyb. i. 22.

BATTLE OF MYL^E, 95

them. The Carthaginians, when with 130 well-built
and well-manned ships they saw the icx) ungainly
Roman hulks, the timbers of which ought still to have
been seasoning in the timber-yard, and their landsmen
sailors, drawn from they knew not where, must have
felt something of the thrill of long-deferred delight
which forced from Napoleon the exclamation, *At
last I have them, those English, in my grasp,* as, as-
suredly, they must have felt something of the keenness
of his disappointment at the still more unlooked-for
result. Not caring in their confidence and joy even
to form in line of battle, they bore down at once upon
the Romans as on an easy prey. When they drew
near, they were for the moment taken aback by the
strange appearance of vessels coming into battle with
their masts left standing — masts, too, with such un-
couth and extraordinary appendages attached to
them. But their hesitation was only for a moment.
Evidently these raw enemies of theirs did not even
know how to clear their decks for action. With re-
doubled confidence thirty of the Carthaginian vessels
charged beak to beak on as many of the Roman
vessels, and each immediately found itself a prisoner,
held fast by the grappling iron which had so excited
their surprise and their contempt. Others of the Car-
thaginian ships, thinking to escape the fall of the
drawbridge which had caught their comrades, charged
sideways against other parts of the Roman ships ; but
round swung the fatal Raven, as though it were a thing
of life, and descended upon them, pinning the vessels
tight alongside of each other, and enabling the
Roman legionaries to dispense with the bridge and

96 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

to leap at once from every part of their vessel into
that of the enemy. After fifty of their ships of war
had been locked in this deadly embrace, the re-
mainder, declining to fight at all with fo^s who were
ill-bred enough to fight and conquer against all the
rules of naval warfare, took to flight. The admiral's
ship, a monster heptireme, said formerly to have be-
longed to Pyrrhus of Epirus, was amongst those
taken by the Romans, and the admiral Hannibal
himself escaped in a little skiff by almost as narrow
an escape as that by which, when general of the army,
he had slipped through the Roman lines at the end
of the siege of Agrigentum.^

The Romans were overjoyed, as well they might
be, at their success. It was their first naval battle,
and their first great naval victory over the greatest
naval power which the world had seen. Its import-
ance was not to be measured by its immediate results,
but rather by the omen it gave for the future. Ho-
nours, till then unexampled, were freely bestowed upon
the Plebeian Duillius. When he went out to supper
it was to the sound of music ; when he returned home
it was with an escort of torch-bearers. A pillar was
erected to his honour in the Forum, called the Co-
lumna Rostrata, for it was adorned with the brazen
beaks of the vessels which his wise ignorance and
his clumsy skill had enabled him to capture.^

The great battle of Mylae was fought in the year

» Polyb. i. 23 ; Floras, ii. 2. 8, 9.

« Polyb. i. 24. I ; Livy, Epit. xvii. ; Cicero, de SmectutCy xiii. 44 ;
Pliny, H, N, xxxiv. 5. Cf. Virg. Georg. iii. 29 ; and Silius Italicus,
Pun, vL 663-668 ; Tac. Ann, ii. 49.

SARDINIA AND CORSICA ATTACKED. 97

B.C. 260, and the Roman army improved the victory
of their fleet by at once marching to Egesta, a town
which claimed relationship to Rome by reason of
their supposed common descent from Troy, and which
was situated in a part of Sicily considerably beyond
any in which we have as yet seen the Romans. Egesta
was always ready to ally itself with a foreigner. As
we have already seen, it had called in the aid, first
of the Athenians and afterwards of the Carthaginians,
against its neighbour and rival Selinus, and now, in the
second year of the war, it had attached itself to Rome ;
but the Carthaginians, eager to punish its defection,
had straightway blockaded the place, and were on
the point of capturing it when the Romans arrived
and forced them to raise the siege.*

The Roman fleet, too, now no longer confined its
aims to the narrow Sicilian waters, but striking boldly
across the open sea, threatened the empire of Carthage
in the rich island of Sardinia also. In the savage
mountains of the interior the natives still managed to
maintain something of their independence and of
their barbarism ; but the coasts had been for centuries
in the possession of the Carthaginians. Thither the
unfortunate Hannibal, son of Cisco, had withdrawn
shortly after his defeat at Mylae, thinking doubtless
that there, at least, he would be safe from Roman
molestation; but even there the Romans, in the
exultation of their first victory, pursued him. Penned
within the harbour in which he had taken refuge, he
lost several of his ships in an engagement, and on his
escape to land was apprehended by his own men and

Polyb. i. 24. 2 ; Diod. xxiii. Frag. 7.

H

98 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

crucified. They took the law into their own hands ;
but, doubtless, they only anticipated the sentence
which would have been passed by the inexorable
Hundred on an unlucky admiral who should have
returned to Carthage after surviving so many and
such unprecedented reverses.^ The Romans followed
up their success by an attack on Olbia, the capital of
the island. The expedition failed. But an attempt
upon Aleria, formerly a Phocaean colony, and now
the capital of Corsica, was more successful. Corsica
had, probably, never belonged outright to Carthage ;
but it had, at least, acknowledged her maritime
supremacy, and the second treaty between Rome and
Carthage seems to have recognised it as a kind of
neutral territory between the two.^ The epitaph of
L. Cornelius Scipio, which is still preserved, tells us
how he took Corsica and Aleria, and how on his
return to Rome he dedicated a well- deserved temple
to the tempest which had almost overwhelmed him in
the Corsican waters.^

But the absence of the Roman fleet in Corsica
and Sardinia proved a serious, if only a temporary,
drawback to the progress of the Roman arms in

» Polyb. i. 24. 5-7.

* See Servius on Mn. iv. 628, quoted by Mommsen, * Ut Cor-
sica esset media inter Romanos et Carthaginienses.'

■ Hie cepit Corsicam Aleriamque urbem,

Dedit tempestatibus aidem mereto.

Nor is Ovid backward to acknowledge the debt of gratitude to the

merciful storm : -

Te quoque, Tempestas, meritam delubra fateniur
Cura pene est Corsis obruta classis aquis.

Ovid, Fastiy vi. 193, 194.

ENERGY OF CARTHAGINIANS,

99

Sicily. Rome could not yet afford so to dissipate
her energy, and Hamilcar, commander-in-chief at
Panormus, now gave evidence of a vigour and a
capacity such as .had hitherto not been witnessed
among either of the contending parties. Hearing
that the Romans and their allies, on their return from
Egesta, were at discord amongst themselves, he sur-
prised and cut to pieces 4,000 of the enemy in their
camp near Himera.^ He destroyed the town of
Eryx and transferred its inhabitants en masse to the
neighbouring fortress of Drepanum ;* and it was doubt-
less the bold front he showed which, in the following
year, compelled the Romans to retire from before
Panormus, after merely convincing themselves of the
strength of its fortifications. The other events of the
two years which followed the battle of Mylae, the
alternate revolts and subjugations, the taking or re-
taking of such towns as Mytistratus, Enna, Gela,
and Camarina,^ were not such — although the tide of
success was, on the whole, in favour of the Romans —
as to promise any speedy termination of the land
war; while, as regards naval affairs, the battle of
Tyndaris, fought B.C. 237 on a spot only a few miles
from Mylae, wherein each party claimed the victory,
left things pretty much as they were.'*

But the lull was only apparent, for both sides were
straining every nerve to raise such a navy as should
be able by sheer strength to bear down all opposition

* Polyb. i. 24. 3, 4.

* Diod. Sic. xxiii. Frag. 9.
' Polyb. xxiv. 10-13.

* Polyb. XXV. 1-3 ; Zonaras, viii. i r, 12.

11 2

loo CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

to it — the Romans with the avowed intention of fight-
ing their way into Africa, and so compelling Carthage
to submit to the terms of peace which they might be
willing to offer her ; the Carthaginians with the hope
of recovering the empire of the seas which had now
been half torn from her, and of excluding the Romans,
if not from the whole of her dependencies, at all events
from her home domain in Africa.^

The material results in the way of shipping ob-
tained by either side were not disproportionate to the
efforts that had been made. Probably never, either
before or after, did such vast naval armaments put to
sea. The most important naval combats of ancient and
of modern times — the battles of Artemisium, Salamis,
and Naulochus, of Lepanto, Trafalgar, and Navarino .
— sink into insignificance, as far as mere numbers go,
when compared with that of Ecnomus. Other battles,
doubtless, enlist the sympathies more fully on one
side or the other, or interest more keenly those who
care for war merely as war. The stake fought for at
Salamis was an infinitely higher stake, and was fraught
with vastly more momentous issues for the whole
human race ; for it was the cause of Greek freedom
and civilisation against Asiatic slavery and barbarism.
At Trafalgar the darling scheme of the heartless op-
pressor of all Europe was for ever frustrated by the
crowning naval victory of a war which, the worst
calumniators of England must admit, was not a selfish
war. In all these points — in the motives of the com-
batants, in its purely military or scientific interest,
and in its results — the battle of Ecnomus is not spe-

* Polyb. XXV. 7-9 ; xxvi. I -3.

ENORMOUS NAVAL ARMAMENTS. loi

cially remarkable. It is impossible to give our un-
divided sympathies to either side. It was a battle,
in the main, of brute force and not of consummate
skill ; it was not decisive even of the result of the
war of which it formed so bulky a part. Still less
can it attract those who look upon all wars except
those waged in self-defence or for purely moral ends
— all wars, that is, except those waged ultimately in
the interests of peace — with horror and condemnation.
Yet men are men, and even the Carthaginian mer-
cenaries, though their employers did not think so,
were worth something more than the pay they earned
by their services ; and size is size, and will always,
apart from everything else, and whether it ought to
or not, attract to itself the attention of mankind. And
from the point of view of mere size — the number, that
is, of its ships and the crews who fought in them — the
battle of Ecnomus is certainly entitled to a con-
spicuous place in history. At Artemisium, no doubt,
the number of Greek and Persian vessels engaged, or
ready to be engaged, must have been greater still,
but they were triremes or penteconters only ; while
at Ecnomus the ships engaged were, in the main,
quinqueremes or hexiremes, and the Roman fleet
carried also a large army intended for land service
in Africa. The vicissitudes of the battle are some-
what complicated ; but it is necessary for one who
would understand aright the first Punic War to dwell
awhile upon a conflict which is so eminently charac-
teristic of it.

The Romans set sail from Messana (B.C. 256) with
330 ships, while the Carthaginians mustered the still

102 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

more portentous number of 350 ships in their famous
port of Lilybaeum ; so that, if we are to accept the deli-
berate calculation of Polybius, who assigns 300 rowers
and 120 mariners to each ship of war, nearly 300,000
men must have met in the battle which ensued ! ^ The
direct line to Africa was along the northern coast of
Sicily ; but the strength of the Carthaginian virgin
fortresses of Panormus, Drepanum, and Lilybaeum, all
of which were on the north or north-west of the island,
made the Romans prefer the southern coast, which was
to a great extent in their own hands, and where their
land army had assembled ready for embarkation. The
Carthaginians, who knew too well what an invasion of
Africa meant, and who felt that the ravages of the
Roman army would not be the worst of the evils that
it would involve, moved slowly forward to Heraclea
Minoa, determined to crush the invaders before they
could leave the Sicilian coast.

The Romans, having taken on board their legions
at Phintias, divided their immense fleet into four
squadrons. The two first squadrons formed two sides
of an equilateral triangle, while the third, having be-
hind them the transports laden with cavalry, formed
its base. To the rear of these again, aind forming at
once a rear guard and a reserve, came the fourth
squadron, which Polybius calls, from the important
function allotted to it, the Triarii.^ At the apex of
the triangle, their prows standing out to sea, and
pointing the rest of the fleet the way to Africa, sailed
abreast the two monster hexiremes — ships as large
probably as our ships of the line — of the consuls

* Polyb. i. xxvi. 7-9. * Polyb. i. 26. 10-15.

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ORDER OF BATTLE. 103

and admirals in one, M. Atilius Regulus and L.
Manlius.

The whole Roman fleet together thus formed the
figure called in nautical manoeuvring an embolon^ or
wedge, a figure said by Polybius to be suited to ener-
getic action and very difficult to break through. On
the other hand, it postulated a skill in seamanship,
and a confidence in their own powers both of attack
and of defence, very different from that which marked
the Roman fleet at their victory at Mylai, only three
years before.^ The Carthaginians, reminded by their
admirals — Hanno, who had in vain attempted to raise
the siege of Agrigentum, and Hamilcar, who had
lately fought, not without credit to himself, at Tyn-
daris — of the momentous issues that were at stake,
and asked to choose whether they would hencefor-
ward fight for the possession of Sicily or in defence
of their own hearths and homes, moved westward along
the shore in good spirits and order. They hove in
sight of the enemy, as it would seem, to the west of
the promontory of Ecnomus,^ and observing the four-
fold division of the Roman armament, they divided
their own fleet into a similar number of squadrons.

The Carthaginian admirals, in order to detach the
first two squadrons of the Roman fleet from the third,
which was retarded by the transports, arranged that

* Polyb. i. 26. 16.

2 Zonaras, viii. 12, makes the battle take place off Heraclea Minoa,
but he gives no details ; and his account of the sequel is obviously mjrthi-
cal, intended to set forth the good faith of the Romans and the bad
faith of the Carthaginians. Polybius clearly implies an advance of
the Carthaginians from Heraclea and of the Romans from Ecnomus, but
the exact scene of the battle must remain uncertain.

104 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

the part of their line which should be first attacked
by the thin end of the Roman wedge should give way
before it and feign a flight. The stratagem was par-
tially successful, for the flying Carthaginian ships,
wheeling round suddenly, closed in upon the sides of
the Roman triangle, which had pursued them too far,
and by their superior rapidity and skill seriously
threatened its safety. But the knowledge that they
were fighting under the immediate eye of the consuls,
and the confidence inspired in them by the possession
of the Raven, enabled the Romans to hold their own,
till Hamilcar, in sheer exhaustion, was compelled to
save hipiself by flight. Meanwhile a fierce double
combat had been raging elsewhere. Hanno, who was
on the Carthaginian right, had forborne to take any
part in the first onset, but, keeping out to sea, as soon
as the three first Roman squadrons had got well past
him, had fallen upon the rear guard. * Ventum erat
ad TriarioSy and, for a time, it seemed as if even the
Triarii would give way. The Carthaginian left, which
had hitherto hugged the shore in a long line at right
angles to the rest of the fleet, as soon as they had got
well behind the Roman position, attacked the third
squadron, which was impeded by the transports.
These, however, slipped the ropes, and did battle
with their assailants. There were thus three distinct
sea-fights, simultaneous and well maintained. Ha-
milcar, as has been said, was the first to give way,
and his flight practically decided the battle. Manlius
remained where he was to secure the disabled vessels ;
but Regulus fell back to the assistance of the Triarii,
who were being hard pressed by Hanno. Hanno

THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 105

was put to flight, and Manlius just then coming up,
both consuls together bore down on the left wing of
the enemy, which, had they only been less afraid of
the boarding-bridges, must ere this have been vic-
torious. A few only of the Carthaginian ships escaped,
but the Romans had no reason to despise their foes,
for, once more, they owed the victory not so much to
their naval skill as to their boarding-bridged. Still,
their victory was complete, and there was now nothing
left to bar the conquerors from Africa.^

* Polyb. i. 27, 28 ; Zonaras, viii. 12,

io6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

CHAPTER VI.

INVASION OF AFRICA. REGULUS AND XANTHIPPUS.

(256-250 B.C.)

Invasion of Africa — Romans overrun Carthaginian territory— Short-
sightedness of Carthaginians — Changes necessary in Roman
military system — Recall of Manlius — Victory of Regulus —
Desperate plight of Carthaginians — Terms of peace rejected —
Arrival of Xanthippus— He is given the command — His great victory
near Adis — ^Joy of Carthaginians — Thank-offerings to Moloch —
Departure of Xanthippus — The survivors at Clypea — Roman fleet
destroyed in a storm — Carthaginian reinforcements for Sicily —
Romans build a new fleet — Take Panormus — Second Roman fleet
destroyed in a storm — Carthaginians threaten Panormus — Romans
build a third fleet — Battle of Panormus — Part played by elephants
in first Punic War — Story of embassy and death of Regulus— How
far true?

The resolution of the Roman Senate had been long
since taken. In fact, as we have said, the fleet had
been built for the express purpose of transferring the
war to Africa ; but it is hardly to be wondered at
that when the hour had come for carrying out so
perilous a resolution, the hearts of some among the
Roman soldiers should have been filled with mis-
givings, and that these should have found expression
in the mutinous language of a tribune.^ Xenophon
has told us how anxiously Cyrus the Younger con-

* Florus, ii. 2. 17.

INVASION OF AFRICA. loy

cealed from the Ten Thousand Greeks the real nature
of the perilous venture he had undertaken ; and how,
before he revealed to them the fatal secret, he took
care so far to commit them to the enterprise that a
retreat would be then not less dangerous than an
advance. The Romans were now entering on a
phase of the great contest which to them must have
seemed hardly less perilous than the Anabasis itself
They had to cross a sea which to them .was as un-
known and, under existing circumstances, as fraught
with the possibilities of mischief as the trackless
deserts of Mesopotamia. They were to enter a new
continent, peopled not by the wild ass and the ante-
lope and the scudding ostrich which had amused the
Ten Thousand Greeks, but, as popular imagination
would have it, and as a grave historian had related,
' by lions and by dog-headed monsters, and by crea-
tures with no heads and with eyes in their breasts.' *
However, threats of a more summary kind used by
Regulus overpowered these forebodings of distant dis-
aster and crushed the rising mutiny, and the Roman
fleet, after it had been revictualled and repaired, stood
right across the Mediterranean to the nearest point
of Africa, a distance of only ninety miles.

The Hermean Promontory is the north-eastern
horn of the Bay of Carthage. Here the Romans
waited awhile to muster their forces. It was the
precise point beyond which — as treaty after treaty,

* Herod, iv. 191 ; cf. Livy, Epit. xviii. ; Val. Max. i. 8. 19 ; Floras,
ii. 2. 20 ; Zonaras, viii. 13, for the account of the huge serpent 120 feet
long found on the Bagradas and besieged by the Roman army with
their ballistae. The skin is said to have been carried to Rome and to
have been preserved there for centuries !

io8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

made with the jealous commercial state, had stipu-
lated — no Roman ship should dare to pass, whether
to trade, to plunder, or to colonise ; and it must have
been with feelings, not of satisfaction or of curiosity
alone, that, after a short pause, the Roman fleet began
to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of that great Car-
thaginian preserve by coasting along till they reached
a town which, from the shield-shaped eminence on
which it stood, they called Clypea, as the Greeks had
already named it Aspis. They set foot without oppo-
sition on African soil, hauled up their ships upon the
beach, and, as though their stay was not going to be
a short one, threw up a palisade around them, and
when the town refused to surrender, they besieged
and took it Meanwhile the Carthaginians had been
forewarned of the coming danger. Hanno, after his
defeat at Ecnomus, had made straight across for Car-
thage, and, though he must have risked his life in so
doing, had bidden the citizens prepare for the worst.
But to be forewarned was with the Carthaginians, at
this period of their history, not necessarily to be fore-
armed : their best armies were absent in Sicily ; their
navy was demoralised and half destroyed, and the
native Libyans were in a state of chronic' disaffection.
Had the Romans marched at once upon the capital
— without an adequate army or a competent general
as it then was — it is just possible that it might have
fallen. But this was not to be. The rich territory
which lay between Clypea and Carthage was too
tempting and too easy a prey for the needy Roman
soldiery. It had now quite reco veered from the devas-
tations of Agathocles, and the Romans, strangers as

SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS OF CARTHAGINIANS, 109

yet, happily for themselves, to luxury, contemplated
with amazement and delight the pleasant gardens and
the opulent palaces of the merchant princes of Car-
thage, which had sated the greed of the mercenaries
of Agathocles fifty years before.^ Nor did their hands
spare what their eyes admired. The palaces were ran-
sacked of their valuables, and then ruthlessly set on
fire ; the cattle were driven in vast herds towards the
Roman camp ; and 20,chdo of the inhabitants of the
surrounding country found themselves collected in
the Roman ships to be sold into slavery.^

Nor had the Carthaginians, in the interval which
had elapsed since the invasion of Agathocles, grown
less fatally distrustful of their own subjects. They still
forbade the subject cities to surround themselves with
walls, not because, like the Spartans, they thought a
living rampart of men was a better protection than
any masonry, but because they had good reason to
suspect that such defence might be turned against
themselves. Accordingly, Regulus passed with facility
from village to village, or from town to town, till, as
the Romans boasted, he had nearly doubled the
number of 200 townships which Agathocles had con-
quered before him.^

But just now came from Rome the astounding
order, which may well have aroused the misgivings
even of the triumphant Roman army, that one of the
two consuls was to return home at once with his
troops and his ships, leaving the other in Africa with
what Polybius calls — one would think with a touch of
irony — a ' sufficient force ' to bring the war to a con-

* Diod. Sic. XX. 8. * Polybius, i 29. 1-7. ' Floras, ii. 2, 19.

no CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

elusion.^' It was not so much that the Roman Senate
actually underestimated the difficulty of conquering
Carthage, as that it did not occur to a body of so con-
servative a frame of mind, that, now that the scale of
their warfare had been so enlarged, it might be
advisable to make a corresponding alteration in all
the conditions under which they carried it on. The
principle that every soldier is, above all and before all
things, a citizen, and that he ought not to forego any
of his civil rights or duties for a longer time than is
absolutely necessary, is in itself a noble principle, and
one which modern states, with their overgrown and
appalling standing armies, would do well to remember.
But the rule that an army should always return to
Rome, either to go into winter quarters or to be dis-
banded, was a practical application of the principle
which, though it had its advantages, must have been
inconvenient even in the early struggles of the
Roman republic ; while the maxim of state policy
that the commander-in-chief, whatever his talents and
whatever the complication of his military plans,
should, as soon as a particular day of the year came
round, be superseded by a civil magistrate, what-
ever his military incapacity, was a maxim which,
though it may have acted well enough in a border
warfare against a discontented Latin or Etruscan
town, had broken down completely in the Samnite
wars, and would be absolutely fatal in the far more
gigantic struggle against Carthage.^

But the Roman Senate, whatever its practical
ability and courage in carrying out the current busi-

* Polyb. i. 29. 8. * See Mommsen, ii. p. 60.

RECALL OF MANLIUS. iii

c

ness of the state, was not more foresighted than other
deliberative assemblies, and needed the bitter teach-
ing of experience to bring home to them what seems
to us so obvious a truth. Its orders were obeyed
without a murmur, and Manlius set off for Rome,
with his prisoners, his army, and his fleet,^ leaving
Regulus behind him, the heir to that strange inherit-
ance of a reputation for military rashness and disaster
on the one hand, and for disinterested patriotism
on the, other, which, immortalised as it has been by
Horace, has gone the round of the world, and will
doubtless survive the most convincing demonstra-
tion of its groundlessness by pitiless critics.

The army with which he was expected, as it would
seem, to complete the conquest of Africa amounted
only to 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. But the
Carthaginians, however shortsighted, had not been
idle since his arrival. They had appointed- Hasdru •
bal, son of Hanno, and Bostar generals with equal
powers ; and, as though this division of responsibility
was not in itself sufficiently prejudicial to their cause,
they now sent for a third from Sicily, Hamilcar, a
man of proved ability, but who was intended not to
overrule his less experienced colleagues, but only to
have an equal voice with them! Their collective
wisdom came to the patriotic resolution — they could
hardly have come to any other — * to go to the help of
the country.'^ The point immediately threatened was
Adis, a town of some importance; and to raise its
siege the Carthaginians occupied a hilly district
which seemed indeed to threaten the Roman lines,

* Polyb. i. 29. 10. * Polyb. i. 30. 3.

112 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

but which far more effectually prevented those oc-
cupying it from making use of the arm in which they
were really strong, their elephants and cavalry. The
Romans were not slow to perceive this mistake, and,
in spite of the strenuous resistance of some of the
mercenaries, assaulted and carried the position, while
the Carthaginian cavalry and elephants extricated
themselves, as best they could, from the broken
ground, and as soon as they reached the plain saved
themselves by flight. The Romans now fell to devastate
ing the country with redoubled energy and with even
less of caution than before. Tunis, itself an important
town in sight of the capital, fell into their hands, and
Regulus encamped on the banks of the Bagradas in
the heart of what was then the most fertile country
in the world.

The prospects of the Carthaginians looked des-
perate indeed. Their only available army had been
defeated and what the Romans had spared in their
devastations, the Numidians, a people always on the
move and always eager for plunder, carried off. If
the Romans had chastised the country districts with
whips, the Numidians, maddened with oppression as
well as thirsting for booty, now chastised them with
scorpions. All the inhabitants who could flee took
refuge in the capital, and the vast increase of popula-
tion was already threatening the city with the famine
and the pestilence which are usually the last outcome
and not the forerunners of a siege. ^

Regulus, seeing their miserable plight and anxious
lest his successor, who, according to Roman custom,

» Polyb. i. 31. 2, 3.

TERMS OF PEACE REJECTED, 113

-' — — ^ — — ^— I - - - I II ■ III —

might be soon expected, should reap the glory of the
war which he had so far conducted prosperously,
offered to n^otiate for peace. The proposal was
jo)^ully accepted ; but Regulus, intoxicated with
success, offered the Carthaginians terms which could
scarcely have been harder if the Romans had been
within their walls. The conquered people were to
acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, to form an
offensive and defensive alliance with her, to give up
all their ships of war but one, to cede not Sicily only
— for that the Carthaginians, acknowledging the for-
tune of war, would have been glad to do — but Corsica
and Sardinia and the Lipari Islands also, to surrender
the Roman deserters, to ransom their own prisoners,
to pay all that it had cost the Romans to bring them to
their knees, and a heavy tribute besides ! Terms, in-
tolerable in themselves, were made still more intoler-
able by the insolent bearing of the Plebeian consul
towards those whom he looked upon as prostrate
before him. He had already written to Rome that
he had * sealed up the gate§ of Carthage with terror,' *
and now he told the ambassadors roughly that * men
who were good for anything should either conquer or
submit to their betters/^ The Romans, when after
the battle of the ^gatian Isles they had to recoup
themselves, as best they could, for fifteen more years
of tedious warfare, for the loss of four fleets, and for
the humiliation which befell this very Regulus so soon
afterwards in Africa, did not propose such ruinous
conditions as these, and Scipio himself, after Zama,
if only because so many of the tiger's teeth had been

> Zonaras, viii. 13. * Diod. xxiii. Frag. lo.

114 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

already drawn, did not think it necessary to clip its
claws as well. It argues an insensate ignorance on the
part of the Romans of what was truly great in their
antagonists, if they thought that they would accept
such terms. The spirit of the ambassadors rose with
their adversity. They refused even to discuss the
conditions offered them, and the Carthaginian Senate
determined to die, fighting bravely with arms in their
hands, rather than sign voluntarily their own death-
warrant* Be the story of the subsequent heroism and
self-sacrifice of Regulus ever so true, a serious abate-
ment must be made in estimating his qualities both
of head and heart, for the insolence and infatuation
which he displayed on this critical occasion.

The moment at which the Carthaginians were
obliged to give up all hopes of peace was also, luckily
for them, the precise moment at which a recruiting
officer happened to return from Greece with a band
of soldiers of fortune whom he had induced to place
their swords at the disposal of the rich republic.
Among these was Xanthippus, a Lacedaemonian of
inferior grade, but one who had been well schooled in
war by the admirable training which the Spartan
discipline still gave, and by the troublous times in
which the whole of Greece was involved. Observing
the excellence of the Carthaginian cavalry and the
number of the Carthaginian elephants, and hearing
also the story of the recent defeat, he remarked
casually, as the story goes, to his friends, that the
Carthaginians had been conquered not so much by
the enemy as by themselves, or by the blunders of

* Polyb. i. 31. 8 ; Diod. xxiii. Frag. xii.

THE COMMAND GIVEN TO XANTHIPPUS. 115

their generals. The words were caught up and ran
from mouth to mouth in the eager and anxious city.
Before long they reached the ears of the government,
probably of the dreaded Hundred themselves. The
Hundred, seldom backward, if our accounts are trust-
worthy, to listen to anything to the prejudice of the
instruments they employed, summoned Xanthippus
before them. He justified what he had said by argu-
ment, and pledged his word that if only the Cartha-
ginians would keep to the plains and utilise that in
which their real strength lay, they would be victori-
ous. It is little creditable to the insight either of the
Carthaginian government or generals that they should
have required a Greek soldier of fortune to apprise
them of the mistake they had made ; but there seems
no reason to doubt the plain statement of Polybius.

The command, but not, as yet, the sole command,
was entrusted to Xanthippus. His confidence was
contagious, and there ran through the city the joyful
news that now the hour had come and the man. Con-
fidence grew into enthusiasm, when men saw the way
in which Xanthippus handled his troops, and con-
trasted it with the sorry performances of the other
generals. A cry was raised for instant battle ; for all
were convinced that no evil could befall them under
such a leader as Xanthippus. A council of war was
held, but the popular enthusiasm carried everything
before it ; and the other generals, pocketing their
pride, or sharing, as it would seem, in the general
enthusiasm, handed over the undivided responsibility
to Xanthippus.^

' Polyb. i. 32.

I 2

ii6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

The Carthaginian army, reinforced by the addition
of the recruits from Greece, numbered 12,000 in-
fantry, with 4,000 cavalry, and a formidable array of
100 elephants. Regulus, surprised at the novel sight of
a Carthaginian army encamping on the plains, hesitated
a moment, as though there was something more in
this change of tactics than met the eye, and pitched
his own camp at a distance of a mile from them. But
finding that the Carthaginians meant to fight, and
flushed with his hitherto unbroken success, he drew
up his army in order of battle. His small body of
cavalry he placed, as usual, on the wings, but his
infantry he massed much more closely together and
in much deeper formations than was common among
the Romans, thinking that they could thus be better
able to resist the onset of the elephants. At last
Xanthippus ordered the elephants to charge, while
the cavalry were to attack and then to close in on
the wings of the enemy. The Roman horse, out-
numbered in the proportion of four to one, took to
flight without striking a blow, and the elephants, rush-
ing wildly into the foremost ranks of the Roman
infantry, laid them low in every direction, and
trampled them to death by scores. The main body^
however, stood firm, and when the elephants turned
aside towards the flanks, it found itself face to face with
the Carthaginian centre, which had not yet drawn
the sword. Attacked in front by the infantry, on the
flanks, which the flight of their own cavalry had left
unprotected, by the Numidian cavalry, and on the
rear by the elephants, the majority of the Roman
legionaries stood their ground nobly, as they did

GREAT VICTORY NEAR ADIS. 117

under similar circumstances at the Trebia forty years
later, and died where they were standing. A few
took to flight; but the flight of foot soldiers from
Numidian cavalry over level ground only meant a
slight prolongation of the miserable struggle for life.
Regulus himself, at the head of six hundred men,
surrendered to the conquerors, and of the whole army
2,cxx) only, who had at the first onset defeated the
mercenaries, and after pursuing them to their camp
had taken no other part in the battle, escaped to
Clypea with the news of the disaster.*

Clypea was the only spot in the whole of the
country which the Romans had so easily overrun that
they could now call their own. The Carthaginians
first spoiled the slain, and then leading the Roman
consul himself and the other survivors in chains, re-
turned in triumph to the capital. It was the first
pitched battle which they had fairly won ; but that
one battle had reversed the whole fortune of the war.
The Roman army had been all but annihilated, and
its miserable remnant was besieged upon the spot
where they had first landed. The inhabitants of the
country districts could now return to their homes
and rebuild their shattered homesteads ; and the
richness of the incomparable soil, with its abundant
irrigation, would soon efface all traces of the invaders.
The citizens themselves once again breathed freely,
for they were delivered from the prospect of an im-
mediate siege, the last horrors of which, in the shape
of sickness and starvation, they had already begun to
taste. What wonder, as Polybius says, if, in the

> Polyb. i. 33, 34.

ii8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

exuberance of their joy, all ranks alike gave them-
selves up to feasting and thanksgivings to their gods ? ^
But what kind of thanksgiving did the Cartha-
ginian deities delight to receive and the Carthaginian^
worshipper bring himself to give ? We know front
Diodorus* that when Agathocles was threatening
Carthage fifty years before, 200 children of the
noblest Carthaginian families had been offered alive
to appease the angry Moloch, and 300 men had
willingly devoted themselves for the same purpose, if
haply they so might save the city from the impending
siege. And, again, a little later, to celebrate a victory
over the same Agathocles, a similar thank-offering of
the most beautiful among their captives had been
offered to the same bloodthirsty god. In that last
case, indeed, the sacrifice had recoiled upon the sacri-
ficers ; for the flames in which the wretched victims
were being consumed, fanned by the wind which just
then sprang up, caught the sacred chapel which stood
near the altar of burnt-offerings. Thence it spread to
the tent of the general, who, according to Carthaginian
custom, must have been presiding at the sacrifice, and
then leaping, with a speed which cut off escape, from
tent to tent of wattled reeds, it enveloped the whole
camp in a lambent circle of fire, and offered to the
fire-god a holocaust of his own most devout wor-
shippers.^ Nor can we doubt that the greater agony
through which the Carthaginians had now passed,
and the still more unlooked-for triumph by which
they had issued from it, were marked by the same

» Polyb. i. 34. 12 ; 36. I. « Diod. xx. 14.

' Diod. XX. 65.

THANK-OFFERINGS TO MOLOCH. 119

horrible offerings on a more imposing scale. There
stood the huge brazen god with arms outstretched to
receive his offerings, as though a father to clasp his
children to his breast. But the arms sloped treacher-
ously down towards the ground, and the victim placed
upon them rolled off into a seething cauldron of fire
below, his cries drowned, as in the vale of Hinnom,
by the rolling of drums and the blare of trumpets.
This was the end, no doubt, of some of the noblest
among the Roman captives. For Moloch was a jealous
god. No alien children, bought with money and
reared up for human sacrifice, would he accept. He
allowed no substitutes, nor would he take from his
worshipper that which cost him nothing or cost him
money only.^ An only child, a first-born child, a
child remarkable for its beauty, its wealth, or its
noble birth, this was the offering which touched the
fire-god*s heart ; and the parents, who had sacrificed
their own children to avert the siege, would now, not
unnaturally, come forward to give the noblest among
the Roman captives as thank-offerings to the god
who had heard their prayer and, as they believed,
delivered them from their distress.

Xanthippus was the horo of the hour ; and if the
Spartan soldiers of fortune were as fond of money as
we know that the Spartan kings and nobles, in de-
fiance of the laws of Lycurgus, had for the most part
been before him, he must have had an opportunity
such as had been given to few of his countrymen, of
satisfying his utmost cravings with the gold of the
opulent republic. But the head of Xanthippus was

^ Diod. XX. 14.

I20 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

not turned by his success. He knew the Carthaginians
better perhaps than they knew themselves, and deter-
mined to return to his own home before the popu-
larity which he had earned should change into envy.
That he acted wisely in so doing is evident from the
story that the Carthaginians sent him back in a ship
which was not seaworthy.* The story is doubtless a
malicious invention, but it could hardly have been
fathered upon a people whose gratitude for favours
received was either deep or lasting.

The Romans, when they heard of the disaster which
had befallen Regulus, fitted out a large fleet for the
rescue of the survivors (B.C. 255) ; while the Cartha-
ginians, rightly judging that the resolution of Rome
would not be broken by any one calamity, however
great, also set to work to build a new fleet which
should protect them from a second invasion. But in
vain did they endeavour to reduce Clypea before the
Romans could reach it. The desperate courage of
the small garrison repelled all assaults, and enabled it
to hold out till the ensuing summer, when the Roman
fleet arrived. A naval battle took place off the Her-
mean promontory. The Romans gained the day,
and took on board, at their leisure, the defenders of
Clypea who had so well earned their lives.

They had well earned their lives, but they were
not long to enjoy them ; they turned their backs with
joy upon Africa, but they were not to see Italy. The
armament had reached Camarina in safety, and was
about to round Pachynus, and to sail home through
the Straits of Messana, when a terrific storm, such as

' Polyb. i. 36. 2-4 ; Zonaras, viii. 13.

ROMAN FLEET DESTROYED IN A STORM, 121

is common in those parts and at that time of the
year, broke upon them. Some of the Roman ships
foundered in the open sea, more were dashed to pieces
against the sharp rocks and numerous promontories
of that iron-bound coast, and the shore was strewed
for miles with wrecks and corpses. Out of 340 ships
it was said that only eighty escaped ; and what must
have given an additional sting to the calamity was
the consciousness that it might have been avoided.
The pilots, probably the only persons on board who
had had real experience of the sea, or who knew what
ugly weather was, had warned the admirals of the.
dangerous storms to which the south of Sicily was
exposed after the rising of the tempestuous Orion.
Along the northern shore they would be in calm
water. But the maritime experience acquired in five
years wherein nothing had gone wrong with them had
• taught the Romans, as they fondly thought, that there
was nothing in the terrors of the sea with which Roman
courage could not cope ; and the admirals were deaf to
the voice of the weather-wise pilots, who shook their
heads at dangers which could neither be seen nor
handled. Moreover, they wished to make the most
of their recent victory, and by its prestige to bring
over to themselves a few small towns, on the south
coast of Sicily, which still wavered in their allegiance.
The prize was small, as Polybius significantly remarks,
and the stake large ; but they staked, and lost it.^

Elated as they were by the rapid departure of the
Roman fleet from Africa, the spirit of the Cartha-
ginians must have risen higher still when they heard

• Polyb. i. 37 ; Eutropius, ii. 22.

122 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

of its sudden and complete destruction. Like Athens
or like Venice, Carthage might well call herself by
the proud title of * Bride of the Sea/ and her citizens,
like the Vikings of after times, might well boast that
they were * friends of the sea and enemies of all that
sailed upon it/ It must have rejoiced the hearts of the
Carthaginians that the sea had at length avenged itself,,
even when their arms had failed, upon those who (to
use the forcible expression of the admiral, Callicrati-
das, under similar circumstances) had * dared to have
dalliance with it/ ^ The war might now be once more
transferred to Sicily, and thither Hannibal was sent
with all the available land forces, with 140 elephants,
and with a fleet which was to co-operate with the
army. He made straight for Lilybaeum, and taking
the field, prepared to ravage the open country.

With unconquerable resolution, however, the Ro-
mans determined to fit out a new fleet to replace the
one that had been destroyed ; and the miracle of
speed which we have noticed before is said to have
been repeated again. Within three months 220 ves-
sels were built from the keel, and were, ready for
action.^

The two consuls, A. Atilius and Cn. Cornelius
Scipio Asina, who had been released from his cap-
tivity, picking up on their way the few vessels which
had escaped to Messana from the general wreck,
made for Panormus (B.C. 254), and in the hour of
their humiliation hazarded an attack upon its strong
fortifications, which they had shrunk from making

* Xen. Hell, i. 6. 15, fioixav riiv Od\arrav.
« Polyb. i. 38. 1-6.

THE ROMANS TAKE PANORMUS. 123.

even after their victory at Mylae ; and, what is more
surprising, they took it with ease. A tower which
commanded the fortifications towards the sea was
first destroyed. This disaster put the new city into the
hands of the Romans, and the old at once surrendered*
Never was a war more fertile in vicissitudes and sur-
prises than had been the first nine years of this. Here
were the Romans stronger and more energetic after a
defeat than after a victory ; taking by a coup de main an
almost virgin fortress, which had never yet been taken
but by Pyrrhus ; baffling all the calculations of a not
inexperienced foe, and then sailing back to Rome as
though nothing extraordinary had happened, leaving
only a small garrison in what had been the Cartha-
ginian capital of the island, the head-quarters of its
armies and its fleets.^

In the following year (B.C. 253), the Romans
tempted fortune again by reconnoitring the African
coast. They landed here and there, and ravaged the
surrounding country, but with no result proportionate
to the danger they ran ; and they ended, owing to
their want of maritime experience, by falling into
the Syrtis, whose name expresses the power with
which an unlucky vessel coming within its reach is
sucked into its deadly embraces. The vessels ran
aground, and were rescued only by a sudden rise of
the sea, which the crews helped by throwing over-
board their valuables. The moment they were ex-
tricated from their danger, like animals that have
been in the toils, they made their way back to Pa-
normus only too thankful if they could escape the

* Polyb. i. 38. 6-10 ; Zonaras, viii. 14.

134 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

pursuit of the enemy. But the worst was still to come.
In crossing from Panormus to Italy they were over-
taken, off the promontory of Palinurus, by another
storm, which, as it must have seemed, could not now
let even the seas to the north of Sicily alone if Romans
were to be found in it. Never since the tempest had
raged day after day on the southern coast of Magnesia,
and strewn the coasts of Thessaly and Euboea with
the wrecks of the vast Persian fleet, had the god of
the sea shown himself so decided a partisan in a
naval contest, or demanded so costly a series of sacri-
fices. The Roman spirit at length began to show some
symptoms of giving way. At all events the Senate
determined not again at present to tempt the sea, but
to depend upon their land forces ; and for the next
two years the war was carried on under conditions
not very dissimilar to those under which it had been
begun.*

The Carthaginians were now once more able to
carry the war into Sicily, and the large army which
they sent under Hasdrubal to Lilybaeum had that
within it which seemed able, for the time at least, to
demoralise, nay, even to paralyse, their foes.*-^ The
havoc wrought by the elephants amongst the troops
of Regulus in the battle near Carthage had been duly
reported to the Roman armies in Sicily, and it had
lost nothing in the transmission. To be knocked
down, and then trampled to pieces by a furious beast
against which neither fraud nor force could avail
aught, would be terrible enough to any well-regu-

» Polyb. i. 39. 1-7. * Polyb. i. 39. 11, 12.

CARTHAGINIANS THREATEN PANORMUSi 12$:

■ lyi ■■ I I I ■■ ■ ^^ ■-■■-■■ ■■■■■--■■■■ ■■■■ , , „ _,

lated mind ; but the fear which it seems to have
inspired completely unnerved the Romans. It was^
not death itself — for that they would have faced
gladly in a hundred fair battle-fields or forlorn
hopes ; it was the instrument and the manner of
death that they feared. They refused to face the
elephants, much as the bravest troops now-a-days
might refuse to measure their collective strength
against the brute power of a steam-engine, or as men
armed with muzzle-loaders might demur, however
great their valour, to standing up against the cold
and cruel mechanism of a mitrailleuse.

Once again did the two armies face one another
at a few furlongs* distance, in the territory of Selinus,
and once again did they part company without comitig
to blows. It takes two to make a quarrel, and the
Romans clung steadfastly to the -hills where their
experience in Africa had taught them that the 140
elephants would be useless, and where the Cartha-
ginians therefore could not attack them with any
hope of success. There were symptoms, too, of
serious disaffection and discontent among the Roman
officers ; and once again it was clear to the Roman
Senate that the sea itself would be less terrible than
such an indefinite and purposeless prolongation of
the war. They accordingly reconsidered their reso-
lution, and began to build a third fleet (B.C. 251).*

Hasdrubal meanwhile, encouraged by what he
thought the cowardice of the Romans, issued from
Selinus, and proceeded to carry off the rich harvests,

* Polyb. i. 39. 13-15.

\

126 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

just then ripe, from under the eyes of the Roman
army at Panormus. Caecilius Metellus was in com-
mand there, a man of prudence and self-restraint, but
able to strike a vigorous blow when there was occa-
sion for it. When Hasdrubal and his elephants had
crossed the river near the city — a step for which he
had been anxiously waiting — he sent forth his light
troops in such numbers as to induce the Carthaginians
to draw up in line of battle. In front of the city wall
ran a broad and deep ditch, within which the light
troops, after they had provoked an attack from Has-
drubal, and should find themselves hard pressed, were
warned to take shelter. Here they would find fresh
weapons awaiting them, thrown down by the towns-
men from the walls above, and, safe under their pro-
tection, would be able to shower missiles upon the
advancing elephants. The order of Metellus was
carried out to the letter, and the result answered his
expectations. The elephant-drivers — Indians, Poly-
bius here and elsewhere calls them — eager to assert
their independence of Hasdrubal, or to win special
credit for themselves, advanced to close quarters be-
fore the word of command was given. The light
troops gave way, and leaping down into the ditch,
received the unwieldy monsters, which came blunder-
ing on to its very edge, with showers of darts and
burning arrows. Unable to vent their rage on their
assailants in the ditch, the elephants rushed wildly
back on the Carthaginian army, and wrought amongst
them the havoc which the Romans had feared for
themselves. Now was the moment for Metellus. Un-
observed by the enemy, he had massed the main

BATTLE OF PANORMUS, 127

"body of his army close behind the gate of the town.
He sallied out in force, charged the enemy, who were
already in confusion, on the flank, and routing them
completely, drove them headlong back towards Se-
linus. It was the greatest pitched battle of the
war, and restored confidence to the Romans at the
time when they needed it most sorely.*

But we must dwell a moment on the fate of the
elephants who had played so important a part in the
battle itself, and whose terrors exercised so critical
and so characteristic an influence on this part of the
first Punic War. Ten of the elephants had been
taken prisoners during the battle, with their drivers.
The drivers of the remainder had been either thrown
to the ground by the elephants themselves or killed
by the weapons of the Romans, and the creatures
were still, after the battle, rushing wildly about, no
Roman daring to lay hands on them. The promise
of their lives to the captured drivers induced some
among them to exercise their moral control when
physical force was out of the question, and in time
the panic-stricken monsters, 120 in number, were
reduced to order. It was determined to send them
to Rome to grace the well-deserved triumph of Me-
tellus ; but it was no easy matter to convey them
across the stormy Straits of Messina. Huge rafts
were lashed together, earth and herbage were scat-
tered over the planks, and high bulwarks carried
round the whole ; and the sagacious animals allowed
themselves to be ferried quietly across the straits under
a total misconception as to the operation which they

• Polyb. i. 40 ; cf. Diod. xxiii. 14 ; Floras, ii. 2. 27-28.

128 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

were undergoing. They marched in stately proces-
sion up the Sacred Way, and were drawn thence,
like so many captured kings or generals before and
after them, to the place of execution, the Roman
Circus. There, after being baited with * arms of cour-
tesy ' to familiarise the people and the soldiers that
were to be, with their formidable appearance, they re-
ceived the cmip de grAce with armes d outrance ; and
the fatal appetite for blood which was then just be-
ginning to show itself among the Roman populace
must have been sated to the full by so gigantic and
horrible a sacrifice. The noble family of the MetelH
always cherished, as well they might, the memory of
the great battle of Panormus among their most pre-
cious heirlooms, and coins of theirs are still extant
representing the formidable beast which their ancestor
had, by his victory at this critical point of the war,
robbed of half its terrors.*

It was, probably, about this time that an embassy
appeared at Rome from Carthage to negotiate, if
possible, a peace, but anyhow, an exchange of pri-
soners. It was accompanied by Regulus, who had
been languishing for five years in a Carthaginian
prison, and who came upon his parole to return to
Carthage if his mission should prove unsuccessful.
Everyone knows the beautiful touches with which the
story of what follows has been filled in by the genius
of Horace ^ and of other late poets and orators ; how

> Polyb. i. 40; Livy, Epit. xix. ; Eutropius, ii. 24; Zonaras,
viii. 14.

* Ode iii. 5. Cf. Silius Italicus, Pun. vi. 346-402 ; Livy, Epit.
xviii. ; Val. Max. i. i. 14 ; Eutropius, ii 25 ; Zonaras, viii. 15.

STORY OF THE EMBASSY, 129

Regulus refused to enter the city as a citizen, or the
Senate house as a senator, since he had lost his right
to both on the day when he became a captive ; how,
when at length he brought himself to speak before
the Senate, he spoke in terms such as no Roman had
ever heard before. * Let those who had surrendered
when they ought to have died die in the land which
had witnessed their disgrace ; let not the Senate esta-
blish a precedent fraught with disaster to ages yet
unborn, or buy with their gold what ought only to be
won back by arms. He was old, and in the short
time of life that still remained to him could do no
good service to his country, while the generals who
would be exchanged for him were still hale and
vigorous ; ' how, when he saw the Senate still waver-
ing between pity for him and their sense of duty to
their country, he nailed them to their purpose by
telling them he had taken a slow poison which was
even then coursing through his veins ; and how, last
of all, he strode off, with his eyes indeed fixed upon
the ground, lest he should look upon his sorrowing
wife and children, but with a step as light and a heart
as free as though he were going for a holiday to his
country estate. It is an ideal picture of a brave man
bearing up under a great misfortune, and striving, as
best he could, to wipe out disgrace ; and as an ideal
picture, we are content to let it pass. A nation has
a right to its patriotic national ideals, and Roman
history would not be Roman history at all without
its Brutus and its Cincinnatus, its Fabricius and its
Regulus.

But it is otherwise with the sequel to the story,

K

I30 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

with that which not only idealises the Roman cha-
racter, but sets it off by blackening that of its rivals,
as if it was the Carthaginians who enjoyed a monopoly
of cruelty, and as if the Romans themselves had
always behaved with ordinary humanity to a con-
quered foe, a foe like C. Pontius for instance, far
more generous and high-spirited than Regulus him-
self. This we are bound to scrutinise carefully and
to mete out stem justice to those who seem to deserve
it We could hardly wonder if, under the circum-
stances, Regulus had been put to death as soon as
he was taken prisoner by a nation which must have
been stung to the quick by his insolent bearing in the
hour of his success, and which showed so little mercy
to its own defeated generals ; but it is so far from
being true that Regulus was put to death with horrible
tortures by the Carthaginians that there is reason to
believe that he died a natural death, and that the
story of the tortures was invented to cover those
which had been really inflicted on two noble Cartha-
ginian prisoners by a Roman matron. No writer
before the time of Cato knows anything of the cruel
death of Regulus, and, when once the legend had
been set going, we find that there are almost as niany
different versions as there are authors who refer to it.
Moreover, the silence of Polybius, the most trust-
worthy of historians, who relates the exploits of Re-
<mlus in detail, and whose chief fault it is that he is too
didactic — seldom adorning a tale, but always ready to
point a moral — is. in itself sufficient to outweigh the
vague rhetoric and the impassioned poetry of the late
Republic.

DEATH OF REGULUS. 131

On the other hand, as has been already hinted, we
have the authority of a fragment of Diodorus Siculus
for a story, which, when we remember his anti-Car-
thaginian bias, we can scarcely suppose that he in-
vented, of the shocking cruelties inflicted on Bostar
and Hamilcar, two Carthaginians given over by the
Roman Senate to the wife of Regulus, as hostages for
the safety of her husband.* Regulus died — so clearly
implies Diodorus — a natural death ; but his widow
thinking, in her vexation, that there had been neglect
or cruelty on the part of the Carthaginians, ordered her
sons to fasten the two captives into a cask of the small-
est possible dimensions and kept them there five days
and nights without food or water till Bostar, happily for
himself, died of the torture and the starvation. But
this was not the worst. Hamilcar was a man of
extraordinary strength of constitution. And what
the poet of the ^neid, in the play of his imagination,
attributes to Mezentius, * the despiser of the gods,' the
most formidable and the most barbarous of the
opponents of -^neas, that a Roman matron did to
Hamilcar :

Mortua quinetiam jungebat corpora vivis.

In that same cask she kept the living and the
dead for five more days, by a cruel kindness sup-
plying Hamilcar with just so much food as might
serve to keep life in him and enable him to realise
the horrors of the situation. At last the advanced
putrefaction of the body roused the pity of even the
servants of the Atilii. They brought the matter before

' Diod. Sic, xxiv. Frag. i.
K 2

132 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the tribunes of the people, and Hamilcar came forth
from his living death and was protected from further
violence by the more merciful people. To palliate
the story of the foul cruelty of the widow of Regulus^
for which the Romans at large were certainly not
responsible, was invented, as seems likely, the story
of the cruel death of Regulus himself

CARTHAGINIAN FORTRESSES IN SICILY. 133

CHAPTER VII.

HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE SIEGE OF LILYB^UM.

(B.C. 250-241.)

Portresses remaining to Carthaginians in Sicily — Siege of Lilybaeum
— Its origin and situation — Early siege operations — Carthaginians
run the blockade — Hannibal the Rhodian — Carthaginian sortie —
Distress of Romans — The Consul Claudius — Battle of Drepanum
— Claudian family — Roman reinforcements for siege of Lilybaeum
lost at sea — Romans seize Eryx — Hamilcar Barca — He occupies
Mount Ercte — Exhaustion of Romans — Culpable conduct of Car-
thaginians — Genius of Hamilcar — His plans — His enterprises —
He transfers his camp from Ercte to Eryx — Romans build one
more fleet — Lutatius Catulus — The Carthaginian plan — Battle of
iEgatian Isles — Magnanimity of Hamilcar — Terms of peace —
Roman gains and losses — Carthaginian losses and prospects — Con-
test only deferred.

The victory which the Romans had won before
Panormus nerved them to make a strenuous effort
for the expulsion of their enemies from Sicily. The
Carthaginians were now hemmed up in the north-
western corner of the island ; and of all their former
possessions, the three fortresses of Lilybaeum, Eryx,
and Drepanum alone remained to them. If the first
of these could by any means be taken, the other two
would not offer any prolonged resistance. The war
might then, once again, be transferred to Africa, and

134 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the Romans, whose proud boast it was that they first
learned from their enemies and then surpassed theni»
would be able to prove to the Carthaginians that this
war was no exception to the rule. Fourteen years had
passed since the war had broken out, and both sides
were fully alive to the vital importance of the crisis at
which it had arrived.

With the siege of Lilybaeum, B.C. 250, opens the
last scene of the first Punic War. It is the last scene^
but a long and tedious one. The siege is one of the
longest known in history. Strictly historical as it is>
it equals in length the mythical siege of Troy, and
the semi-mythical siege of Veil. The Romans distin-
guished themselves in it by their heroic perseverance^
and by little else ; but it was that kind of heroic per-
severance which lay at the root of most of what they
achieved, and is not, after all, so far removed from
genius. The Carthaginian defence was marked by
all the versatility and inventiveness, the prudence and
the daring, which characterise the Phoenician race ;
above all it was marked by the appearance on the
scene of at least one real military genius, the great
Hamilcar Barca.

Lilybaeum was built upon the promontory which
formed the extreme western point of Sicily. It was
the point nearest to Africa and directly fronted the
Hermaean promontory. It was therefore, so long as
it remained in the hands of the Carthaginians, the
most important support to their power in Sicily. It
would be a standing menace even to their home rule in
Africa as soon as it should pass into the hands of their
enemies. The fortress itself was not of great an-

LILYBjEUM. 135

tiquity. It owed its origin to the fall of the adjoining
Motye only fifty-four years before. Motye had been
destroyed by Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse/ but the
Carthaginians, with the buoyancy of their nation, at
once consoled themselves for its loss by founding a
new settlement on the promontory of Lilybaeum, the
superior advantages of which they had hitherto seemed
to overlook. In the interval that had elapsed since that
time it had grown into an exceedingly strong fortress,
probably the strongest which the Carthaginians pos-
sessed. Just before the beginning of the siege it received
an important addition to its population. All the in-
habitants of Selinus were transferred to it, and if Dio-
dorus is to be believed, it contained now a population
of 60,000 men capable of bearing arms.^ It possessed
a fine harbour, to the capabilities of which the name
given it by the Arabs in mediaeval times of Marsa
Allah, or the Harbour of God, still bears witness
(Marsala). But the entrance to it was rendered
difficult by the constant winds that blew off the head-
land, and by the treacherous sand-banks and sunken
reefs which lay off the shores ; and these, if they were
dangerous to the inhabitants who knew them well,
would be doubly dangerous to an enemy who did not.*
Pyrrhus, a few years before, had overrun all the
rest of Sicily with ease ; but the impetuosity of his
assault had been beaten back by the solid walls of
Lilybaeum.^ Would the Romans succeed where

* Diod. xiv. 47-53. * Diod, xxiv. Frag. I.
^ Polyb. i. 42. 7 ; cf. Virgil, /^«. iii. 706 :

* Et vada dura lego saxis Lilybeia csecis/

♦ Diod. xxii. Frag. 14.

136 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Pyrrhus had failed ? They saw that a place so
situated and so defended could only be attacked with
any hope of success by a strong army and a strong
fleet at once, and they supplied them ungrudgingly.

Two consular armies, consisting of five legions and
two hundred vessels, appeared before the place. The
first attack was directed against the wall which
stretched from sea to sea right across the peninsula
on which the city was built, and the immediate suc-
cess obtained by the Romans was such as appeared
to promise an early termination of the siege. By
regular approaches the Romans worked their way up
to the city wall, undermined some of its towers, and
when these had fallen, brought up their battering-rams
to threaten the whole line of defence. But Himilco,
the commander of the garrison, was a man of energy
and of fertility of resource. By building a second
wall behind the first he made the weakening of the
first to be of small importance. He met the mining
operations of the enemy by countermines, and he
quelled, by his address and personal influence over
the better disposed of the mercenaries, a formidable
conspiracy which had broken out among them to
betray the town to the Romans.* Polybius recalls
with patriotic pride the name of Alexion, an Achaean
soldier of fortune, who, by his fidelity to his em-
ployers, saved Lilybaeum from falling into the hands
of the Romans, as he had formerly saved Agrigentum,
its freedom and its laws, from some treacherous Syra-
cusan mercenaries.^

Meanwhile, the Carthaginians knowing the weak-

* Zonaras, viii. 15. * Polyb. i. 42, 43.

SIEGE OF LILYBjEUM. 137

ness of their naval force off Lilybaeum, and fully
conscious that the place could not hold out unless
relieved from home, made vigorous efforts to throw
succour into it. Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, was
despatched with all haste to Sicily, with fifty ships
and 10,000 troops. He moored his fleet among the
-^gatian Isles opposite to Lilybaeum, waiting for the
moment when he should be able to face, with some
slight chance of success, the double dangers of the
Roman squadron, and the rocks and reefs that girt in
the harbour. A favouring, although a violent, wind
sprang up. He spread every inch of his canvas, and
massing his troops on deck to be ready for an en-
gagement, with that happy rashness which is the
truest prudence, he made his way in safety through
the narrow entrance, while the Roman guard-ships
remained at anchor close by, the sailors stupidly look-
ing on, aghast at his rashness, and expecting to see
him dashed to pieces upon the rocks. The sea walls
of the city were thronged with the eager inhabitants,
Jioping, as it seemed, against hope, that some few of
the ships might, by a lucky chance, pass safely
through ; and amid their loud cheers Hannibal rode
into the harbour under full sail, without losing a
single vessel, and deposited in safety his 10,000 troops
and his stores of provisions. Those who have read
the thrilling story, as told by Lord Macaulay, of the
siege of Londonderry, and who can recall his picture
of the ' Mountjoy ' and the * Phoenix ' forcing the boom
in Lough Foyle, and saving the heroic and famished
garrison from the most hideous form of death, or
perhaps from that which is still worse than deaths

138 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

can best realise the enthusiasm, as described briefly
but emphatically by Polybius, with which the in-
habitants greeted the successful termination of the
bold venture of Hannibal.* After revictualling the
place, that he might not unnecessarily himself consume
any of the provisions which he had brought, Hannibal,
availing himself of the darkness of the night, and
probably carrying with him the Numidian cavalry
which could no longer be of service in the closely
blockaded town, once more threaded the dangerous,
passages and joined Adherbal, the admiral, at Dre-
panum, fifteen miles away.^

His example was contagious. A Rhodian mer-
cenary, of the same name, volunteered with a single
vessel to do as he had done. Again and again he ran
the blockade, and found his way out in safety, as
though he bore a charmed life, through the midst of
the Roman vessels which were drawn up at the en-
trance of the harbour for the very purpose of prevent-
ing his escape. Doubtless he held the clue to the
dangerous navigation of the straits, which, now that
the buoys were removed, no enemy could discover*
Each venturesome visit breathed fresh courage into the
garrison, and spread fresh despondency in the blockad-
ing fleet, while it enabled the Rhodian to communicate
to the Carthaginian government the wants and wishes
of their beleaguered subjects. The Romans tried to
block up the entrance to the harbour by sinking ships
filled with stones in its narrowest part ; but the depth
of the sea and the violence of the current, helped by
opportune tempests, carried them away and opened

* Polyb. i. 44. * Polyb. i. 46. i ; cf. Diod. xxiv. Fr. i.

HANNIBAL THE RHODIAN 139

the passage again. It seemed that the sea was never
going to desert its favourites, when, in an unlucky-
moment, a Carthaginian quadrireme ran ashore upon
a part of the mole which the Romans had just sunk,
and fell into their hands. They immediately manned
it with their own men, and lay in wait for the return
of the Rhodian. He had run the blockade once too
often ; and in trying to force his way out he was fol*-
lowed by a vessel whose speed and build convinced
him that she must be of Carthaginian workmanship,
though the rowers who propelled her were clearly
Romans. Finding that he could not escape by flight,
he turned boldly round and charged the enemy. But
a trireme had no chance against a quadrireme ; it wa^
taken prisoner, and the adventurous Rhodian*s vessel
henceforward formed part of the blockading squadron
of the very fortress which it had done so much to
relieve.^

Meanwhile Himiico, the commander in Lilybaeum^
encouraged by the supplies and reinforcements he had
received, as well as by the inactivity and cowardice of
the Roman guard-ships, determined to sally out in
force at the head of 20,000 men, in hopes of destroy-
ing the Roman military engines. After a desperate
hand-to-hand conflict, and much loss of life on both
sides, he was driven back;* but asecond attempt proved
more successful. Taking advantage of a violent wind^
he set fire in three places to the Roman engines^,
which were dry from long exposure to the sun. Th^
wind carried the flames from one to the other, and
consumed the very foundations of the towers and the

• Pol. i. 46, 47. « Pol. i. 45.

«40 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

heads of the battering-rams. The Romans found that
-all the labour hitherto expended on the land-attack
was thrown away, and there was nothing for it but to
convert the siege into a blockade.^

The condition of the blockading army was not an
enviable one. A plague had broken out in their camp,
occasioned partly by the unhealthy climate, partly by
the want of bread — a want which all the efforts of
their zealous ally, Hiero of Syracuse, could not meet.
The Romans were ordinarily vegetarians,^ and the
abundant supply of meat which they had till very
lately received from the Sicilian flocks and herds had
jiot mended matters. They lost from this cause, as
well as other incidents of the war, within a few days,
if Diodorus Siculus may be believed, not less than
10,000 men ; and now, to complete the tale of their
(misfortunes, P. Claudius was sent out to take the
command (B.C. 249), a man who proved to be as in-
competent as he was arrogant, and who mistook, if
our accounts do not do him injustice, severity for
discipline, violence for strength, and childish weak-
ness for manly courage.

Despising alike the consuls who had preceded
Jiim and the officers who served under him, the new
consul first renewed the attempt to block up the
mouth of the harbour, as though a Claudius must
succeed where others had failed ; and when the waves
showed that they had no more respect for patrician than
for plebeian blood, as though the siege of Lilybaeum
was not enough to occupy his energies, he determined
to attack Drepanum, fifteen miles away, in hopes of

* Polyb. i. 48 ; Zonaras, viii. 15. * Diod. xxiv. Fr. i.

THE CONSUL CLAUDIUS. i\x

taking Adherbal and his fleet there by surprise ! ^ His
generals remonstrated, and the sacred chickens — so-
the augurs reported — refused to eat. * If they will
not eat, they shall drink,* said he, and ordered them
to be flung into the sea.^ It is possible that this story
may have been invented to account for the calamity
that followed ; but the words attributed to Publius
have a genuine Claudian ring about them. * Neither
gods nor men should stay a Claudius from his pur-
pose ! ' The generals were browbeaten into com-
pliance. Ten thousand troops had just arrived from
Rome ; Claudius put the best of them on board his
vessels to serve as marines, and there was no lack of
volunteers for the enterprise, not probably because
they trusted the abilities of the consul, but because
anything seemed better than a blockade which was
no blockade at all.

The fleet set out at midnight, and by daybreak its
foremost ship hacj reached the entrance of the harbour
of Drepanum. The surprise was complete. Adherbal,.
knowing well how hard pressed the Romans were at
Lilybaeum, ignorant that they had been reinforced^
and ignorant also of the character of the new consul,
had never dreamed that they would molest him at
Drepanum. He who would attempt it must be.
either a fool or a military genius, and Rome, in this
war at all events, had not been fertile of either. A
respectable mediocrity had hitherto been the order of
the day alike among the Romans and the Cartha-

* Pol. i. 49 ; Diod. xxiv. Frag. 2.

' Cicero de Nat. Deornm^ ii. 3 ; Livy, Epit. xix. ; Floras, ii^
2. 29.

142 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

ginians. But Adherbal was not disconcerted. Deter-
mined not to be besieged, like Himilco at Lilybaeum,
he set his rowers to their work, and summoning by
the sound of the trumpet the mercenaries from the
city to the beach, he addressed them in a few stirring
words, and then distributing them over his ships, he
led the way in his own ship out of one side of the
sickle-shaped harbour of Drepanum, while Claudius
was still hovering near the entrance of the other.^
Surprised at this, and fearing now in his turn to be
enclosed between a hostile navy and a hostile town,
Claudius turned round, hoping to make his way out
of the harbour by the way he had entered it. But
the signal could not reach the whole of the long
column round the headland at once, and it was with
difficulty that the consul got all his ships out of the
trap into which he had drawn them, and arranged
them in line of battle close along the coast, their
prows pointing towards the fleet of .Adherbal, which
was already in line, and ready, with superior forces, to
bear down upon them. In the battle which ensued we
hear nothing of the Ravens of Duillius. When the
ships did close with one another there was hard and
free fighting, for the decks carried the pick of either
army ; but in every other respect — the build, the
number, and the speed of their ships, the experience
of their rowers, and the space for manoeuvring —
the advantage was with the Carthaginians. The
Roman ships, when hard pressed, could not retire
behind the line, for there was no room left between
it and the shore ; and for the same reason they could

> Polyb. i. 49.

DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS, 143

not give help to one another in their distress. The
consul, as he was the first to get into the mess, was
also the first to get out of it. He took to flight, and
his example was followed by the thirty ships nearest
to him. It was well, perhaps, that he did so ; for the
whole of the remainder, ninety-three in number, fell
into the hands of the Carthaginians, who, it is said,
did not lose a single vessel.^

Whether Publius cared aught for the lives he had
thus thrown away we are not told ; but probably his
sister, some years afterwards, expressed pretty accu-
rately the family feeling for the loss of the mere
rabble of the fleet. She was taking part as a Vestal
Virgin in a procession, and when the crowd pressed
upon her more closely than she liked, she was heard
to exclaim that she wished her brother were alive to
get rid of some more of them at sea.^ Loud must
have been the curses of the Roman army at Lily-
baeum when the consul brought back the news of
his own defeat and flight ; and deep, certainly, was
the resentment of the Roman Senate at his reckless
incapacity. He was recalled ; and being ordered to
nominate a Dictator in his stead, he named, with true
Claudian effrontery, a freedman of his family, M.
Claudius Glycia ; but he was shortly after put on his
trial, and met with the punishment which he deserved.^

The blockade of Lilybaeum, such as it was, was
for the time practically at an end, and the Romans
were more anxious to keep the troops who were
already there from starving than to supplement their

* Polyb. i. 50, 51. * Livy, Epit. xix. ; Aulus Gellius, x. 6.

« Polyb. i. 52. 2.

144 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

number or to make the blockade effective. A fleet
of 800 merchant vessels, laden with supplies of every
kind, and convoyed by 120 ships of war, was des-
patched from Rome, and reached Syracuse in safety.
Anxious to take on board the provisions offered him
by the ever-zealous Hiero, the consul, L. Junius Pullus,
lingered awhile at Syracuse with half his fleet, while
he sent forward the other half towards their destina-
tion.^ Why the Romans, with their bitter experience
of the dangers of the sea, did not attempt to forward
the provisions by land, with Hiero*s help, we may
well wonder. Perhaps the Numidian cavalry, who
had been set free from Lilybaeum, were too for-
midable.

But the Carthaginians were on the look-out for
them. Adherbal, admiral at Drepanum, was determined
to push his victory to the utmost. After sending as
trophies to Carthage the ships which he had taken, he
despatched his vice-admiral Carthalo first to Lilybaeum,
to attack the remainder of the Roman fleet which had
taken refuge there, and thence to Heraclea, to await
the arrival of the provision ships. The advanced
portion of the Roman convoy hearing of the approach
of Carthalo, and unable to offer battle or to take to
flight, ran into the nearest roadstead on that inhospit-
able coast, and protected themselves, as best they could,
by the military engines planted on the cliffs above.
Carthalo, not caring to run unnecessary risk, and sure
now of his game, kept watch at the mouth of a river
hard by till they should be obliged to move. Mean-
while the other portion of the Roman fleet had left

* Polyb. i. 52. 4 ; 53. 4-8.

THE THIRD ROMAN FLEET DESTROYED. 145

Syracuse, had rounded Pachynus, and were sailing
quietly along the coast in ignorance of the close prox-
imity of their own and of the enemies' ships. To
prevent the junction of the two fleets Carthalo ad-
vanced to meet them, and they, too, knowing their
weakness, made for the nearest shore, a spot which,
unfortunately for them, had neither harbour nor
roadstead, and was exposed to every wind that blew.
Carthalo, sure of his game, now lay-to in the offing,
half-way between them, pinning with his small fleet
the two much larger ones to the shore ; but the
weather-wise Carthaginian pilots saw the signs of a
coming storm, and warned the admiral, while there
was yet time, to make for shelter. He sailed round
Pachynus eastward and was in calm water, leaving
the storm to take care of the Romans ; and the storm
did take care of them. Some of the crews, indeed,
escaped to land, but the 800 ships were broken into
fragments, * not a plank of them remaining,* says
Polybius, * which could be used again,* and for miles
along the coast the hungry foam was discoloured by
the corn intended for the famishing Roman army
before Lilybaeum.^

When this sad news reached Rome — the destruc-
tion of a third fleet by the waves and the undisputed
mastery of the sea won back by the Carthaginians in
the fifteenth year of the war (B.C. 249) — there were
symptoms of despondency even in the Roman Senate ;
but the consul Junius was among those who had
escaped from the wreck, and he made his way to
Lilybaeum, burning by some signal achievement to

' Polyb. i. 53, 54; Diod. xxiv. Frag. i.

L

146 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Wipe out the blame which he felt might be thrown
upon him.^ Nor was he disappointed. A few miles ta
the north of Drepanum, between it and Panormus, and
standing back a little from the coast, rises a mountain
then called Eryx, and now known by the name of St.
GiuHano. It stands by itself, and rising to a height of
some 2,000 feet in solitary grandeur, is so imposing^
an object that ancient geographers and historians
mention it in the same breath as iEtna, which is
really four times its height.^ Right on its summit
stood a temple of immemorial antiquity, dedicated ta
Venus, and celebrated for the wealth which it had
amassed and had managed to retain amidst the vicis-
situdes of all the conflicts that had raged around it.
It had been taken and retaken many times in the long^
contest between Dionysius of Syracuse and Carthage,
and more recently it had fallen before the assault of
Pyrrhus ; but, revered alike by Sicilians and Phoeni-
cians, by Greeks and Romans, it had escaped plunder
even at the hands of the adventurous prince who did
not spare the wealthy sanctuary of Proserpine at
Locri.^ Half-way up the mountain was a city which
was not so proof against all the storms that blew as
was the temple on its top, for it had been partially de-
stroyed by the Carthaginians in this war, and its in-
habitants transferred to Drepanum ;* but heaps of its
buildings must have still remained, and it was evidently
still an important position for defence. Of this natural

* Polyb. i. 55. 1-6 ; Zonaras, viii. 15.

* Polyb. i. 55. 7 ; cf. Virg. ^«. xii, 701, * Quantus Athos aut
quantus Eryx.*

* Appian, Sam, 12. * Diod. xxiii. Frag. 9 ; Zonaras, viii. 15.

HAMILCAR BARCA. 147

stronghold — mountain, fallen city, and temple — one
of the only three strongholds that still remained to
the Carthaginians in Sicily, the consul Junius managed
to get possession by a sudden attack, and held it
firmly against any similar surprise from the enemy
in the closely adjoining Drepanum.^

Such was the general condition of affairs (B.C. 247)
when the great Hamilcar, *the man whom Melcarth
protects/ appeared upon the scene, and threw into
the war an energy and an ability, which, if only it
had been employed before, or if only it had been
adequately supported even now by Carthage, would
probably have changed the issue of the first Punic
War. Hamilcar Barca was the head of the great
family named after him the Barcine — the word Barca
is the same as the Hebrew Barak — and well did
Hamilcar justify the name which succeeding ages
have always coupled with his and with his alone of
his family, by the 'lightning' rapidity with which, in
this the sixteenth year of the war, he would now sweep
the Italian coast with his privateers, now swoop down
and carry off a Roman outpost, and anon would
seize a stronghold, which the terror of his nanie alone
rendered impregnable, under the very eyes of an op-
posing army. Equally great as an admiral and a
general, after ravaging the Roman coasts from Locri
to Cumae, he landed suddenly in the neighbourhood
of Panormus and seized the commanding eleva-
tion called Ercte (now Monte Pellegrino). This hill^
like Eryx, rises to a height of about 2,000 feet, but,
unlike it, on two of its sides rises sheer from the sea ;

> Polyb. i. 55. 9, 10; Diod. xxiv« Frag, i,

L2

148 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

a third side rises equally perpendicular from the
plain, while on the fourth alone, which directly faces
Panormus, at the distance of a mile and a half, is the
plateau at all accessible. This stronghold Hamilcar
seized, and this he held for three years in sight of the
Roman garrison at Panormus, and in the near view of
a fortified camp placed almost at its base, in spite of
all the efforts of the Romans to dislodge him, and,
when he left it, he left it only of his own free will to
occupy a similar, though a less advantageous, position
elsewhere.^

The place was admirably adapted for his purpose.
At its base was a little cove into which his light ships
might run laden with the spoils of Italian or Sicilian
towns, accessible from the high ground occupied by
his troops, but not accessible from any place on shore.
There was an abundant spring of water on the very
summit, and above the precipitous cliffs that under-
pinned the mountain was a broad plateau which in
that delicious climate Hamilcar found that, even at
such an elevation, he could cultivate with success.
A rounded top which crowned the whole was a post
of observation commanding the country round, and,
in case of need, would serve as an acropolis, where
no one of the defenders need die unavenged.^

But neither the success of the consul Junius at
Eryx, nor the presence of a master spirit among the
enemies — which the Romans could not fail to see —
could now rouse the Senate to take the active
measures which the times required. The drain upon
the resources of the State had been too enormous

Polyb. i. 56, I, 2. * Polyb. i. 56. 4- 10.

CULPABLE CONDUCT OF CARTHAGINIANS. 149

The muster-roll of the citizens had fallen in the last
five years from 297,000 to 251,000 — a sixth part of
the whole.^ The As, the unit of value among the
Romans, which had originally weighed twelve ounces
of copper, had now fallen, as Pliny tells us, to two
ounces, to one-sixth, that is, of its former value.^ The
State was bankrupt, and the Senate could neither
make up their minds to withdraw altogether from the
war, nor yet to prosecute it with the necessary vigour.
They still made believe to continue the blockade of
Lilybaeum ; but the seas were open to the Carthagi-
nians, and everyone knew that as long as the seas
were open to them they might laugh at all the efforts
of the Roman armies.

Nor were the Carthaginians on their part more
self-sacrificing or more far-sighted. Finding that the
Romans had retired from the sea — not to save the
blood of their citizens, for that they rarely risked, nor
yet to save the blood of their mercenaries, for that
they cared not for, but to save their gold, of which
there must still have been a large supply, if not in the
treasury, at all events, in the pockets of the ruling
citizens — they cut down their navy by a wretched
economy to the narrowest possible dimensions, and
were quite content, if only they could supply with food
their heroic garrisons at Lilybaeum and at Drepanum,
not to make an effort to reconquer any of the places
which had so recently belonged to them. Having
lighted at last upon an able general, they would not,
indeed, interfere with his making the best use he could
of the small band of mercenaries whom they had given

* Livy, Epit. xviii. and xix. ^ piiny, Hist, Nat, xxxiii. 13.

ISO CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

him at so much a head, and, so far as they were con-
cerned, he might utilise his few ships to collect sup-
plies ; but not to them must he look henceforward
for more ships or men. The war, or his part of the
war at all events, must henceforward support itself. If
Hamilcar, they argued, was successful in his venturous
enterprises, so much the better for them ; if unsuccess-
ful, he and not they lost.

Hence the five or six long and listless years of
war which followed the appointment of Hamilcar ;
discreditable enough to the governments of the con-
tending states, but redounding to the honour of that
one heroic soul who, learning from the past the lesson
which no Carthaginian general had yet been able to
learn, applied it to the exigencies of the moment with
a patience, a perseverance, and an energy which
seemed more than human ; and conscious all the
time, as it would seem, that his efforts were, for the
present at least, foredoomed to failure, was yet con-
tent to sacrifice himself if only he might prepare the
way for vengeance in the remoter future. What
mattered it if Sicily was lost } A greater Sicily might
be found beyond the seas in Spain ; a new world
might be called into existence to redress the balance
of the old. In that great coming struggle Africa
should turn back the tide of aggression upon Europe,
and Rome, not Carthage, should tremble for her
safety. Hamilcar Barca was not far wrong. The
genius of the son carried out what the father had
planned and had prepared. The army of Hannibal,
welded by the spark of his genius out of the most
unpromising materials into one homogeneous and in-

HAMILCAR'S PLANS, 151

dissoluble whole, was the legitimate counterpart of
the small band of mercenaries trained so painfully by
Hamilcar. The ultimate result of Hamilcar's patient
struggles on Mount Ercte was the victorious march
of Hannibal on Rome.

To explain a little. Hamilcar saw that the real
defect under which the Carthaginians had laboured
all along had been the want of a trustworthy infantry.
Their cavalry was excellent; their elephants more
than once had borne down all before them ; their
ships had been beaten, not by skill but by brute force.
But as long as they were without a body of infantry
who, man for man, could stand up against the Roman
legionaries, so long it was impossible that they could
beat their enemies. The mercenaries who formed the
bulk of the Carthaginian armies had sold their ser-
vices to Carthage for gold"; what wonder if they
transferred their services at the critical moment to
those who would appraise them more highly ? What
wonder that Lilybaeum had been all but betrayed,
and that the temple of Eryx itself was on the point
of being seized by Gallic deserters from the Cartha-
ginian army } To the task of remedying these de-
fects Hamilcar addressed himself with a patience and
a self-restraint which is the more surprising the more
conscious he must* have been of his own superlative
talents for aggressive war upon a mighty scale. By
enforcing strict discipline at any price ; by never fight-
ing a battle, and therefore never risking a defeat ; by
maintaining a daily and hourly warfare with the Ro-
man outposts, he gradually trained his troops to face
the terrors of the Roman presence, as the Romans on

t52 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

their part had at last trained themselves to face the ter-^
rors of the elephants. Knowing that he could expect no-
efficient aid from Carthage, he determined, if possible,
to save her in spite of herself. To attach the mer-
cenaries to Carthage by ties of gratitude or respect or
patriotism was impossible ; but it might not be im-
possible to attach them to himself by that close tie
which always binds soldiers to a general whom they can
alike fear and trust and love, and then to utilise that
attachment not for his own but for his country's good.
How nobly Hamilcar carried out his resolve every
action of his life proves. Day after day he would
sally from his mountain fastness, like a lion from its
den, on the fair plains of Sicily. Unobserved or un-
attacked he would pass by the Roman camp placed
at the foot of the mountain, and return with the sup-
plies necessary to keep his small force from starving.
Once we hear of him even at Catana, on the east coast
of the island.^ His galleys, in the same way, would
harry or alarm the coast of Italy even as far as Cumae.
Never was a more harassing warfare waged, and yet
there is little to record. Polybius remarks, that it
is as impossible for the historian to do more than
state these general facts, as it is for the spectator at
a prize-fight either to see or to describe. the blows
rained by practised pugilists on one another when
the contest is nearing its end. They know, perhaps^
the strength and the skill of the combatants ; they
hear the heavy thud, and they see the lightning lunge ;
they note the result, but they cannot accurately ob-
serve or recount the process. So was it with Hamil-

' Diod. xxiv. Frag. 2.

HAMILCAR OCCUPIES ERYX. 153;

car ; and yet it must be remembered that the struggle
was hardly at present a life-and-death struggle, for
the Romans seem never to have tried seriously to
beard the lion in his den, and Hamilcar, with his
handful of troops, can hardly have hoped to raise the
siege of Lilybaeum. At most he might distract the
attention of the Romans and impede their progress.

So things might have gone on for ever, whea
Hamilcar (B.C. 244) surprised even the Romans —
though by this time they could hardly have been
surprised at anything Hamilcar did — by voluntarily
abandoning the stronghold endeared to him by three
years of hair-breadth escapes and romantic adven-
tures, and attacking Mount Eryx, a stronghold which
lay nearer indeed to the beleaguered Carthaginian
cities of Drepanum and Lilybaeum, but in all other
respects was less advantageous, and at that very time
was held in force by the Romans. He managed to
dislodge the garrison from the ruined city halfway
up the mountain, but he failed in all his efforts to
take the temple on the summit, occupied as it then
was by a band of Gallic deserters who had been taken
into their pay by the Romans, and who, since they
carried their lives in their hands, were prepared to sell
them as dearly as possible.^ Here then, once more,
was Hamilcar on an isolated hill, two miles from the
coast, and therefore beyond the reach of immediate
succours from his galleys, with a band of desperate
enemies above him, and a Roman army encamped
below ! Well might it seem that a single strenuous
and united effort on the part of the Romans might

* Polyb. i. 58. 2, 3 ; Diod. xxiv. Frag. 2 ; Zonaras, viii. 16.

154 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

bring Hamilcar to his knees, or that at all events he
might be starved into a surrender. But this was not to
be. For two more years did Hamilcar hold out in this
most impossible of situations, fighting, says Polybius,
like a royal eagle, which, grappling with another eagle
as noble as himself, stops only to take breath from
sheer exhaustion, or to gather fresh strength for the
next attack.^ The war was fought out elsewhere,
and its issue was decided by men of other mould and
making than the royal soul of Hamilcar.

It must have long since been apparent to the
Roman Senate that unless they could fit out a fleet
more effective than any that had preceded it, Drepa-
num and Lilybaeum might hold out for ever, and that
while they held out their own hold on the rest of
Sicily must be precarious. They had built four fleets
since the war began, and all had been utterly de-
stroyed ; with what conscience could they now pro-
pose to throw more public money into the gulf, and
to commit themselves to the mercies of the hostile
and insatiable sea } Even if they should decree a
property tax, it was doubtful — such was the general
distress — whether it could be levied. But where
public enterprise failed it should be recorded to the
eternal credit of the Romans, that private citizens
were forthcoming who volunteered, either singly or
in combination, to furnish ships of war to make up
another fleet. If the venture should prove success-
ful, the State might repay them, should it like to do
so, at its own time. If it failed, as every fleet had
failed before, they would have done nothing more

> Polyb. i. 58. 6-9.

LUTATIUS CATULUS. 155

than their duty, and duty must be its own reward.*
A good model was found in the Rhodian's vessel
which had been captured off Lilybaeum ; and, as if to
complete the dramatic history of this unlucky craft,
the very trireme which had performed such prodigies
of speed and daring for the Carthaginians in the siege
of Lilybaeum was now to reproduce itself in the shape
of 200 Roman vessels, which should raise the siege
of that very town and bring the war to its conclu-
sion.^

The consul, C. Lutatius Catulus, took the com-
mand of this pre-eminently patriotic armament early
in the year B.C. 242 ; and once again Roman ships of
war were to be seen riding in the harbours of Drepa-
num and Lilybaeum. Hamilcar could now no longer
receive supplies by sea, and unless he could break out
in force, his surrender was, as it seemed, only a ques-
tion of time ; but the Carthaginians, hearing of the
danger, and finding to their surprise that a Roman
navy was again in Sicilian waters, made for the first
time a serious effort to support him. For four long
years • Hamilcar had borne the brunt of the conflict,
without receiving supplies of men or money from home,
and, now that they were about to lose him, the Cartha-
ginians awoke to a consciousness of his true value. But
a fleet could not be built in a day, even by the Cartha-
ginians ; and by the time the transports — for they were
transports rather than ships of war — reached Siciiy,
Catulus had, by dint of constant training, transformed
his landsmen into tolerably experienced sailors.^

In March of the following year (B.C. 241), Hanno,

* Polyb. i. 59. 6, 7. * Polyb. i. 59. 8. ■ Polyb. i. 59. 9-12.

156 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

the Carthaginian admiral, made for Hiera, one of
the iEgatian Isles, in hopes of being able from
thence to communicate with Mount Eryx. His plan
was to land his heavy cargo of com there, to take
on board instead the pick of Hamilcar's men, and
above all the great Hamilcar himself, and then, and
not till then, to fight a decisive action.^ Catulus had
already selected the best from among the Roman
troops before Lilybaeum to serve the same purpose on
board his ships ; and he now made for ^Egusa, the
principal of the ^Egatian Isles, with the intention of
cutting off Hanno from the shore, and bringing on a
general action.

On the morning of his intended attack a strong
wind sprang up from the west, the very thing which the
Carthaginians needed to carry them rapidly into
Drepanum. To intercept them the Romans would
have to contend against wind and tide as well, and
from this even the bravest mariners might shrink.
Catulus, or rather the Praetor Q. Valerius — for Catulus
was laid up by a wound — knew the odds against him,
and hesitated for a moment to face the risk ; but
reflecting that if he did not strike a blow,^ the enemy
would be able to take Hamilcar on board, and that
Hamilcar was more formidable than any storm, he
determined to close with the lesser of two dangers.
Down came the Carthaginian ships, heavy with their
cargo of corn, but flying before the wind with all their

» Polyb. i. 60. 3-5.

' Valerius Maximus, ii. 8. 2. *Consulem ea pugna in lectica
claudum jacuisse ; se autem omnibus imperatoriis partibus functum/
The triumph was adjudged to the Consul. Cf. Eutropius, ii. 27.

MAGNANIMITY OF HAMILCAR, 157

sails spread, and the rowers using their oars as well.
When they saw the Romans venturing out on such a
sea to intercept them, they struck sails and prepared
for action. But the battle was over almost as soon as
it began. After the first shock, the well-made slightly-
built Roman ships, with their practised crews and
their veteran soldiers, obtained an easy victory over
the awkward and heavily-laden Carthaginian vessels,
with their inexperienced rowers and their raw recruits.
Fifty of the Carthaginian ships were sunk and
seventy taken, the remainder escaping with the help
of an opportune wind to Hiera.*

This great victory, the victory of the ^Egatian
Isles, ended the war. Both sides had played their last
card, and the Carthaginians had lost. Their spirit
was not altogether broken ; but it was impossible to
fit out a new fleet in time to relieve Hamilcar, and
they wisely resolved, by utilising his great name and
the indefinite possibilities of his future when driven to
stand at bay, to obtain more favourable terms than
would otherwise have been offered them. We could
hardly wonder if Hamilcar had declined the thankless
duty, and had left the task of surrendering Sicily to
those who far more than himself were responsible for
it. But no thought of self seems ever to have entered
his great soul. For his faithful band of followers and
their honour he was jealous ; but of his own feelings
of outraged pride and righteous indignation we hear
nothing. He rejected with scorn the ungenerous
proposal of Catulus that his troops should give up
their arms and pass under the yoke ; and it was

* Polyb. i. 60. 6 anl 61 ; Zonaras, viii. 17; Floras, ii. 2. 33-37.

158 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

arranged that when peace should have been con-
cluded, they should depart with all the honours of
war.*

The terms of peace were then agreed upon by
Catulus and Hamilcar, subject to the subsequent
ratification by the Roman people. The Carthaginians
were to surrender Sicily to the Romans, and to bind
themselves not to wage war on Hiero or his allies ;
they were to restore the prisoners they had taken
without ransom, and to pay within the next twenty
years a war indemnity of 2,200 talents.* The Roman
people were not satisfied with these conditions ; but
the plenipotentaries who were sent out to the spot
contented themselves with raising the indemnity by
half as much again, while they halved the time in
which it was to be paid.* The easy terms thus
granted — so far easier than those demanded by
Regulus fifteen years before in the hey-day of his
success — are to be explained partly, no doubt, by the
exhaustion of the Romans themselves, but partly also
by the dread they felt as to what Hamilcar might
still dare, if driven to desperation. As such it is the
noblest homage paid by the conquerors to the
military genius of the ' unconquered general of the
conquered nation.'* Two individuals, and two only
in the whole course of Roman history, seem by the
mere fact of their existence to have inspired real
terror into the Roman heart. The one was Hamilcar
Barca, the other his, perhaps, still greater son.

> Polyb. i. 62. 1-6 ; Com. Nepos, Hamilcar, i. 5 ; ii. i ; Zonaras,
viii, 17. * Polyb. i. 62. 7-9.

» Polyb. I 63. 1-3. * Cf. Polyb. iii. 9. 7.

GAINS AND LOSSES. 159

So ended the First Punic War ; the longest war,
says Polybius, the most continuous, and the greatest
which the world had then seen ; * and it may be
questioned, even now, whether there has ever been a
war in which the losses were so frightful, and the
immediate gain to either party so small. The Romans
had indeed gained Sicily ; but Sicily with the one
exception of the dominions of Hiero, which were still
to belong to him and not to the Romans, was then
drained of everything which made it worth having.
Its territories had been ravaged, its population swept
away, its towns destroyed one after the other. Greek
as well as Phoenician enterprise and civilisation had
been almost blotted out. The island has never en-
tirely recovered its prosperity. Its soil is still in great
part uncultivated, its population is one of the most
degraded in Europe. To set against this equivocal
gain, the Romans had lost 700 ships of the line,
containing not less than 70,000 men, and army after
army had fallen victims to starvation, to pestilence or
the sword.

The Carthaginians, on their part, had lost 500
ships of war, but the crews which manned them, and
the soldiers who formed the staple of their armies,
were such as, in their callous indifference, they could
bear to part with ; for more were to be had for money
from their still vast recruiting ground. The richness
of their soil, and the abundance of their irrigation had
already repaired the injury done by Regulus. They
had been driven indeed from Sicily ; but had not the
Phoe nicians been driven before, in like manner, from

» Polyb. i. 63. 4.

i6o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Crete, from Cyprus, and from Asia Minor ? What
mattered it if, with the enterprise and buoyancy of
their race, they could still found new colonies, and
build up a new empire in countries whither the
Romans had never penetrated, and of which they had
Jiardly yet heard the names ?

Everything portended an early renewal of the
conflict on a more gigantic scale. Rome by crossing
the narrow straits of Messana had entered on her
career for good or evil, of universal conquest and
aggression. Carthage was still mistress of the western
half of the Mediterranean, and had no intention of
voluntarily retiring from it More than this ; Ha-
milcar Barca was still alive — Hamilcar Barca, with his
patience and his genius, with his burning patriotism
and his thirst for revenge ; above all with his infant
son.

EVENTS DURING TEMPORARY LULL, i6i

CHAPTER VIII.

HAMILCAR BARCA AND THE MERCENARY WAR,

(b.c. 241-238.)

Events between First and Second Punic War — Significance of Mercenary
War — Weakness of Carthaginian Government — S)rmptoms of mu-
tiny — Revolt of mercenaries and native Africans — Hanno and
Hamilcar Barca — The Truceless War — Its atrocities and termination.

The twenty-two years which separated the First from
the Second Punic War were not years of rest to either
Rome or Carthage. The Carthaginians had barely
concluded peace when they found that they had to
face dangers far more terrible and foes far more
implacable than any they had met with in the
twenty-three years' war from which they had just
emerged.

The Romans, on their part, busied themselves in
organising their newly conquered province ; in appro-
priating to themselves, with shameless meanness and
injustice, the island of Sardinia,, the oldest foreign
possession of the Carthaginians, and that which, next
after Sicily, had been the object of her most jealous
precautions ; in suppressing Illyrian piracy and ex-
tending their northern frontier from the Apennines
to the Alps. Let us bridge over the interval between

M

i62 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the war of Hamilcar and the war of Hannibal, not by
describing these events in detail ; but by touching
on them just so far as they bring into clear light the
dealings of either nation with their dependencies, or as
they directly influenced the mightier struggle which
was looming in the distance.

A war with barbarians is seldom worth minute
description, and this Libyan war is in itself no ex-
ception to the rule. Yet it deserves much more
attention than is usually given to it ; first, because it
illustrates forcibly the dangers to which any state is
exposed which depends mainly or wholly on mer-
cenaries for her protection ; and secondly, because it
takes us, as it were, behind the scenes, and, perhaps,
more than any other portion of this history, brings
into clear relief the vices and the virtues, the strength
and the weakness, of the Carthaginian rule.

The great Hamilcar, during his three years of
warfare at Mount Ercte, had managed to make the
war support itself ; but during the last two years at
Eryx, when he was cut off from the sea, and was
hard pressed by enemies alike on the peaks above
and in the plains below him, he had found it difficult
enough to procure the bare necessaries of life for his
troops, and he had been able to pay them by promises,
and. by promises only. That he was able to keep his
band of fickle barbarian followers in so dangerous a
position for a couple of years without remunerating
them for their services, and yet without any symptom
of mutiny or insubordination on their part, is not the
least striking testimony to his commanding personal
qualities. When the war was finished, he handed

SIGNIFICANCE OF MERCENARY WAR. 163

them over, with spirits still unbroken, to Gescon, the
Carthaginian commander at Lilybaeum, and to Gescon
fell the disagreeable duty of transporting them to
Africa, and of informing the home government of
their obligations towards them. Gescon was equal
to the emergency; but not so the government.
Knowing the men, and knowing also those with whom
he had to deal, Gescon arranged to send the troops
by detachments, so as to give the authorities the
opportunity of either paying them off separately, or>
if that could not be done, at all events of disarming
and dispersing to their homes the first detachment
before the second should have set foot in Africa. But
the party then in power at Carthage were at once
short-sighted and unscrupulous. They neither paid
the mercenaries their arrears of pay, nor told them
boldly that they could not do so. They brought the
first detachment into the capital to await the arrival
of the others, and then, when idleness and dissipation
had produced their natural result, they sent them to
the town of Sicca, a town noted for its licentiousness,'
with their wives, their children, and their baggage ;
though these might have been invaluable as securities
for their good behaviour, and though the mercenaries
had themselves wished to leave them behind. Pro-
longed inactivity at Sicca gave rise to more serious
disturbances, and then, to make matters worse, the
government sent to them not Hamilcar or Gescon the
soldier's friend, but Hanno, whom they might well
consider the soldier's enemy; and that, not to pay

* Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 15.

M 2

i64 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

them off, but to sue for a remission of a part of what
was due to them.*

The malcontent mercenaries had been drawn from
all the nations which served as a recruiting ground to
the once rich republic. There were to be found
amongst them Greeks and Iberians, Libyans and
Ligurians ; slingers from the Balearic Isles and run-
away Greek slaves. So motley a gathering — each
man speaking (as the Carthaginians, fearful of revolt,
were anxious that he should) his own language only
—would be slow to apprehend the purport of any
elaborate explanations which might now at length be
offered them as to the difficulties of their employers.
But they would not be slow to understand the up-
shot of the whole^ that they were not to receive their
pay, or to catch up any mutinous expressions, such as
* Smite him, smite him ! ' which were soon to be heard
with ominous frequency in their camp. * Let the govern-
ment send them some one who had served in Sicily,
who knew their rights and wrongs, and not a Hanno
who neither knew nor cared aught for them.' ^ Things
assumed a more threatening aspect. The mutineers
to the number of 20,000 marched for Carthage and
pitched their camp near Tunis ; and the government,
thoroughly frightened, began to cringe when they
could no longer threaten, and sent out provisions to
be sold at a nominal price in the hostile camp. This
only made the mutineers despise them the more.
New promises and new concessions were met by new
and more exorbitant demands. It was no longer
merely the arrears of pay, it was the price of the

> Polyb. i. 66. « Polyb. i. 67.

REVOLT OF MERCENARIES. 165

horses which they said they had lost, and the cost of
their maintenance as rated by themselves, which they
threateningly demanded. In their anger they began to
express distrust even of Hamilcar ; if he had not been
neglectful of their interests, their claims they thought
must, ere this, have been fully satisfied. Gescon, who
was the favourite of the hour, was at last sent to them
in accordance with their demand ; but he was as
unsuccessful in effecting a compromise as Hanno.*

It was too late. The mutiny had come to a head.
It had found leaders in Spendius, a runaway Campa-
nian slave, in Matho, an African, who had served with
distinction in Sicily, and in Autaritus, a Gaul.^ Ges-
con, who, in a fit of impatience at the insolence of their
demands, had let slip the wish that the malcontents
would lay their demands before Spendius and not
before him, was taken at his word. He was thrown
into chains ; the money he had brought with him was
seized, and the war began. Messengers were at once
despatched by Spendius and Matho to the peoples of
Africa summoning them to liberty ; the joyful news
spread from village to village, and was enthusiastically
responded to by the natives. The love of the in-
habitants of the Barbary States for personal orna-
ments attracts the notice of even the passing traveller
in Africa at the present day. No woman. Bedouin
or Berber, is so poor or her habitation so squalid
that she does not carry on her person earrings or
ankle rings, necklaces or bracelets, which are often
of fine workmanship and of intrinsic value. But the
Libyan women to whom Matho's summons came,

> Polyb. i. 68. « Polyb. i. 69 and 77. i.

1 66 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

and who had seen their husbands or parents torn
from their homes, if they could not pay the exorbi-
tant tribute levied on them by the Carthaginian
government, or half ruined by it if they could, were
eager now to sell their trinkets and their jewels,
everything, in fact, which could be turned into the
sinews of wan* Men flowed in so plentifully that the
rebel generals were able at once to begin the siege of
Utica and Hippo Zarytus, the two places which, alone
of the surrounding African and Phoenician cities, had
hitherto signalised themselves by their attachment to
the oppressor.^ Money was so abundant that Spen-
dius was able not only at once to discharge all the
arrears of pay to his troops, but also to meet all the
immediate expenses of the war. The Carthaginian
government had never yeft been in such sore distress.
In a moment they had been cut off from the rich
districts which supplied them with food, which filled
their treasury with money, and their armies with their
best troops. They had no ships, for their last fleet
had just been destroyed in Sicily, and they had no
independent allies, for it was the fate of Carthage — the
fate, it must be added, she too well deserved — never
to possess any. It was useless to treat for peace with
men who were loaded with the accumulated wrongs
of centuries, and were burning for revenge. The
natives remembered the crucifixion of 3,000 of their
countrymen, the finale of their partial and unsuccessful
attempt at revolt during the invasion of Regulus a
few years before ; * and they were determined that
this revolt should be neither partial nor unsuccessful.

* Polybius, i. 72. 4, 5. ' Pol. i. 70. 9. • Appian, Sic, Fra . 3.

HANNO AND HAMILCAR BARCA. 167

Bitterly must the Carthaginians have rued their
cruelty when they reaped its natural consequences,
when they found that the proverb * as many slaves, so
many enemies,* was, in their case, no figure of rhetoric
but the stern and simple truth.

Among the magistrates who had acquired the
special confidence of the governing clique at Carthage
by the amount of money which they had squeezed out
of the subject communities, no one was more con-
spicuous than Hanno, and he it was whom they now
selected for the chief command in the Libyan war, a sad
omen of the character which it was likely to assume.
Hanno was the personal enemy of Hamilcar, and was
as incapable as he was self confident. If he won a
partial success he failed to follow it up. He forgot
that he was fighting no longer with nomadic tribes,
who after a reverse would fly for three days without
intermission, carrying their homes with them, but
with men led by the veterans of Hamilcar, who did
not know what it was to be defeated, who had learned
at Eryx, says Polybius, to renew the conibat three times
over in a single day, and who would feign a retreat
only that they might charge again with irresistible
force.^ Deceived by some such simple feint as this,
the incompetent Hanno having won, as he thought, a
complete victory, allowed his camp to be surprised
and taken. The government in its distress was
obliged to apply to Hamilcar, the man whom they
had treated so ill in Sicily, and whom they had
treated worse still in the persons of his trusted
veterans when the war was over.^ But Hamilcar,

» Polyb. i. 74. 7. « Polyb. i. 75 I.

l68 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

still placing his country before all else, consented to
serve the government which had betrayed him. He
induced or compelled the easy-going citizens to enlist,
and having got together a force of seventy elephants
and 10,000 men, he managed to slip through the
armies, which, stationed as they were, one at Utica
and the other at Tunis, had almost cut Carthage off
from Africa ; and then, by his strict discipline, by his
energy, and by his influence with the Numidian
chiefs, especially with one called Naravas,* he defeated
the enemy in a pitched battle, and overrunning the
country, recovered several towns which had revolted
and saved others which were being besieged. De-
serters, some of them, doubtless, veterans of his own,
came over to his. side ; the spell of his genius and of
their attachment to him overpowering (as in the case
of Marshal Ney after Napoleon's escape from Elba)
all other obligations, even those of immediate self-
interest. Nor was this all. His kind treatment of
4,000 of his prisoners of war, some of whom he allowed
to enlist in his service, while the rest he dismissed
to their homes on their simple promise not to serve
against Carthage during the war, was something so
unlike anything which the natives had before ex-
perienced at the hands of the Carthaginians, that
Spendius and Matho, fearing wholesale desertions,
determined to cut down their bridges and burn their
boats, by involving the whole force in an act of atro-
city which not even Hamilcar could forgive.^

Panic is always cruel, and the panic of barbarians,
if less culpable, is far more uncontrollable than the

> Polyb. i. 78. I. « Polyb. i. 80. 3-9.

THE TRUCELESS WAR. 169

panic of civilised men. By a well-laid plan Spendius
and Matho contrived to create such a panic. Those
who counselled moderation were greeted with the cry
of * Treason, treason !* or * Smite him, smite him !' and
when in this way — just as in the French Revolution,
the Girondists fell before the Jacobins, and the more
moderate of the Jacobins themselves before the more
violent — a reign of terror had been established, the
Irreconcilables carried everything their own way.
Gescon, * the soldier's friend,* lay ready to their hand.
He and his company of 700 men were led out to
execution, and having been cruelly mutilated were
thrown, still living, into a ditch to perish. To an
embassy from Carthage sent to ask for their bodies,
the only answer was a blunt refusal, and a warning
that if any more embassies were sent, they should fare
as Gescon had fared. Thenceforward all native Car-
thaginians who fell into their hands would be put to
death, while others who did not belong to the hated
nation should be sent back to the city with their
hands cut off. The mercenaries were as good as
their word, and from that day forward the war de-
served the name by which it is known in history, the
' war without truce,' or the * Inexpiable War.' ^

Upon its horrors we need not here dwell. The
world has been supping so full of horrors of late dur-
ing the terrible struggle which has devastated some
of the fairest countries of Europe and of Asia, that we
are not disposed to linger unnecessarily on the atro-
cities of the Mercenary War. Suffice it to say that
Hamilcar was driven to make reprisals for the bar-

> Polyb. i. 81.

I70 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

barities of the Libyans by throwing his prisoners to
be trampled to death by the elephants, and the war
was henceforward, in the literal sense of the word,
internecine. The Carthaginian government managed,
even in this supreme hour, to thwart Hamilcar by
allowing his inveterate enemy Hanno, discredited as
he was, to share the command with him. Nor was it
till after the quarrels which ensued had led to many
reverses ; till the news arrived of the total destruction
of their own ships in a storm, of the revolt of Hippo
and of Utica, the towns which alone had been faithful
to Carthage in the invasions of Agathocles and Regu-
lus ; * above all, till the news had come of the insur-
rection of the mercenaries in Sardinia, and the
probable loss of that fair island, that the Carthaginians
allowed the voice of the army to be heard, and com-
mitted to Hamilcar once again the sole command.

Hamilcar soon penned the Libyans in their forti-
fied camp near Tunis, and so effectually cut them
off from all supplies that they were driven to eat
first their prisoners and then their slaves ; and it was
not till they had begun to look wistfully upon one
another that some of tlie chiefs, with Spendius at
their head, came forth to ask for the parley which they
had themselves forbidden. Hamilcar demanded that
ten of the mercenaries, to be named by himself, should
be given up, while the rest of the army should be
allowed to depart unarmed with one garment each.
This having been agreed upon, Hamilcar immediately
named Spendius and his fellow legates, and threw
them into chains.^ The rebel army thinking, as well

» Polyb. i. 82. 8. * Polyb. i. 85.

ITS ATROCITIES AND TERMINATION. 171

they might, that Hamilcar had been guilty of sharp
practice, flew to arms. They were still 40,000 in
number, but they were without leaders, and they
were exterminated almost to a man. Matho still held
out at Tunis, and when Spendius was crucified by
Hamilcar in front of its walls, Matho, by a sudden
sally on the other side of the town, took a Car-
thaginian general prisoner, and shortly afterwards
crucified him with fifty others on the very spot which
had witnessed the last agonies of Spendius. A horrible
interchange of barbarities ! Though one is tempted to
remark that they took place two centuries before and
not twenty centuries after Christ. The army of
Matho was soon afterwards cut to pieces. The rebel
chief himself was taken prisoner, and, after being led
in triumph through the streets of the capital, was put
to death with terrible tortures (B.C. 241-238). So
ended the Truceless War, after a duration of three
years and four months, with the total extermination
of those who had made it truceless ; * a war,* says
Polybius, and he says truly, *by far the most cruel
and inhuman of which he had ever heard ;** though
we are again tempted to remark that he had not seen,
or perhaps imagined, such scenes as those at Batak
and Kezanlik.

» Polyb. i. 83. 7.

172 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

CHAPTER IX. ,

HAMILCAR BARCA IN AFRICA AND SPAIN.

(B.C. 238-219.)

Conduct of Romans during Mercenary War— They appropriate Sardinia
and Corsica— Peace and war parties at Carthage — Hamilcar's com-
mand — He crosses to Spain — Advantages of his position there —
His administration and death — His character — Administration of
Hasdrubal — New Carthage founded — Early career of Hannibal —
Remissness of Romans — Rising of Gauls in Italy— Its suppression
— Hannibal besieges Saguntum — War declared between Rome and
Carthage.

During the desperate struggle for life on the part
of the Carthaginians which has just been related, the
Romans had, on the whole, behaved with moderation,
or even with generosity, to their conquered foe.^ Had
it pleased them to make one more effort and once
again to risk a Roman army upon African soil, when
they were invited to do so by the revolted Uticans
and by the mercenaries themselves, there can be little
doubt that Carthage would have fallen, and that there
would have been no second and no third Punic War to
relate; and had they dreamed of what lay deep
hidden in Hamilcar's breast, or of the vast military
genius which was being reared amidst those stormy

> Polyb. i. 83. 5.

ROME AND THE MERCENARIES. 173

scenes in his infant son, no exertion would have ap-
peared too great to make, and no danger too desperate-
to dare, even to the cautious Roman Senate. Was it
that the exhaustion consequent on the twenty-three
years* war was even greater than is commonly, sup-
posed, and that the Romans were bound over to keep
the peace by the stress of necessity ? Or was it that the
Senate, true to their traditional policy, would not ven-
ture upon African conquest till they felt sure that they
were leaving behind them no enemy nearer home, no
Illyrian pirates to sweep their western coasts, and no
Gauls who, from their seats on this side the Alps,
might again descend on Rome ? Or, once more, was
it that something of the courtesy and magnanimity of
Pyrrhus — exotic plant though it was in the breast of
his Roman antagonists — still lingered on in so un-
congenial a soil ? This we do not know ; but we do
know that when the revolted mercenaries in Sardinia
had done to all the Carthaginians on whom they
could lay hands what their brother mercenaries in
Africa had done to their hated masters there ; and
when the native Sards, those unconquered Troglodytes
of the mountains, called by the expressive name of the
'Insane/ * had driven the mercenaries in their turn to
Rome as suppliants for Roman aid, the Senate at first
remained true to its treaty engagements, and refused
to interfere in the internal affairs of the Carthaginian
empire. They had begun the late disastrous war by
supporting the freebooting murderers of Sicily, they
would not signalise its termination by supporting
a similar band of infuriated soldiers of fortune in

' Floras, ii. 6. 35. The Greeks also called them ijuuv6fu^ya.

174 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Sardinia. Had the Romans really wished at that time
to annex Sardinia, they might have found a decent
pretext when the Carthaginians threw into chains
certain unprincipled Italians, who, for purposes of
their own, were trading with the rebels in Africa.
But they contented themselves with a remonstrance,
and when the Carthaginians set their prisoners free
the Romans returned the courtesy by liberating all the
Carthaginian prisoners whom they still retained, by for-
bidding their subjects to trade with the mercenaries,
and by allowing the Carthaginian recruiting officers
to enlist recruits even in Italy itself.^

But when the genius of Hamilcar had saved Car-
thage and an expedition was being fitted out by the
government to recover its revolted province, the
Romans, professing to believe that the armament
was intended to act against themselves, and hatching
up various fictitious grievances, threatened the Car-
thaginians with instant war if they dared to molest
those who had thrown themselves on their protection.^
It was an act of unblushing and yet, at the same time,
hypocritical effrontery on the part of the Romans,
hardly less base, and certainly more inexcusable, than
had been their support of the Mamertines.^ But the .
Carthaginians had no choice but to submit to the
right of the strongest, and they gave up not Sardinia
only, but such parts of Corsica as they had ever
claimed, and were compelled also to atone for their
warlike intentions by paying an indemnity of 1,200
talents to the outraged and peace-loving Romans.'*

» Polyb. i. 83. 6-12. 2 Polyb. i. 88. 8- 10. « Polyb. iii. 28. 1-4.
* Polyb. iii. 10. 3 and 27. 8 ; Zonaras, viii. 18.

PEACE AND WAR PARTIES AT CARTHAGE. 175

Hamilcar once more showed his greatness by submit-
ting to the inevitable ; but the iron must have entered
into his soul more deeply than ever, and he must have
bound himself by still more binding oaths, if such
could be found, to drink the cup of vengeance to the
dregs when the time should come, or to perish in the
attempt.

It might have been thought that the incapacity of
the governing classes at Carthage and the double
disasters which they had brought upon the country
would have so seriously discredited them that Hamil-
car Barca and his Patriotic Party would, for a time, at
all events, have been supreme in the State ; but so
far was this from being the case that, while Hamilcar
was returning redhanded from his desperate victory
which had saved the State, the party of Hanno was
strong enough and impudent enough to place the
deliverer upon his trial. He had been — they did not
scruple to assert— the cause of the Mercenary War, for
he had made promises of pay to his troops which he
had not been able to perform ! ^ But it was beyond
the power or the impudence even of the Cartha-
ginian Peace Party to find him guilty, and the indict-
ment seems to have fallen by its own weight or its
own absurdity. There had been sharp conflicts for
some time past between the War and the Peace Party,
between the reformers and the reactionaries, at Car-
thage ; and the events of the last few years had made
the distinction between them sharper still. Around
Hanno — called, one would think in irony, Hanno the
Great — gathered all that was ease-loving, all that was

* Appian, Hisp, 4.

176 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

short-sighted, all that was selfish in the great republic
The commercial, the capitalist, the aristocratical in-
terests seem, on the whole, to have followed his lead.
Around Hamilcar Barca, on the other hand, gathered
all that was generous and far-sighted ; all, in fact,
who were not content to live in peace, knowing that
after them would come the deluge. Jewish kings,
and those by no means the worst of their race, were
often consoled when they heard on their repentance
that the evil should come not in their own but in
their sons' days. Not so was Hamilcar Barca, and
not such his followers. But he was the head of a
minority only, and finding that it was impossible to
bring the majority over to his way of thinking, or to
reform them by pressure from without, he determined
to accept, or, it may be, to demand, a post in which
he could serve his country more effectually.*

He obtained from the fears, the hatred, or the
hopes of those opposed to him, the command of the
army, an appointment which, for different reasons,
must have been equally acceptable to his friends and
his enemies. The accounts which we have of these
times are meagre and obscure, and come almost ex-
clusively from the reports of the party hostile to the
great * Barcine faction,' for so Livy, full of Roman
pride and Roman prejudices, too indolent ^ to enquire
into, and too opinionated to estimate aright what was
really great in the Carthaginian character, calls the

' Appian, Hisp. 5.

' Livy, xxi. 2 and passim. Diodorus (xxv. Frag, i) improves upon
Livy, and calls the party of Hamilcar — some of the noblest patriots
who ever lived — iTOipefo tS»v Tovripordroov kvOpiJawuty^ a band of the most
worthless fellows.

ADVANTAGES OF HAMILCARS RESOLVE. 177

disinterested and the patriotic supporters of Hamilcar.
But it is clear, even from these reports, that Hamilcar
received the command with autocratic powers, subject
only to removal by the voice of the collective Cartha-
ginian people. That he was independent of the
Home Government was as much to their advantage
as his. They were saved the trouble of supplying him
with men and money, and, if necessary, they could dis-
avow any awkward acts of his, while he was saved from
the cabals and intrigues with which, had they had the
chance, the Government might have hampered his
movements. He first stamped out the embers of the
Libyan revolt which were still smouldering in the
country to the west of Carthage, and then, accom-
panied by the fleet, made his way slowly along the
Mauritanian coast towards the immediate goal of his
long-cherished schemes. When he reached the pillars
of Hercules (B.C. 237), on his own undivided responsi-
bility, he crossed the straits and set foot in another
country and another continent.

It was a bold step, but it was a wise one. If
Carthage was to be saved at all from the ruin which
Hamilcar and all keen-sighted men saw impending
over it, it must be by Hamilcar and Hamilcar's
army. But where in Africa could he raise an army,
and how, when it was raised, could he have fed it
there } The merchant princes of the city who, under
the pressure of necessity, had enrolled themselves in
his ranks to defend their all, had returned to their
businesses or their pleasures as soon as the immediate
danger was over. His own veterans, and thousands
of other Libyans who under his training might have

N

178 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

become as valuable as they, had been, by the most
tragic of necessities, exterminated by Hamilcar him-
self in the late war ; and he could hardly hope just
then to enlist others who could serve him as their
predecessors might have done. A few of his Sicilian
officers, indeed, still followed the banner of their
chief, and a few devoted friends and members of his
family were left behind at Carthage, and these last, if
they held no office in the State, showed that they
could do more. If they were not allowed to govern,
their ability and their patriotism yet gave them the
divine right to rule. Of this nothing could deprive
them ; and, like the Medici at Florence, or the Dukes
of Orange in the Netherlands, this half-outlawed
Barcine family actually received foreign embassies
and concluded foreign treaties, as an independent
body, co-ordinate with the Senate itself ! But officers
alone cannot make an army, and the Barcine family,
powerful as it was, could not induce the money-loving
Carthaginian merchants to untie their purse-strings in
support of the distant and chimerical projects of Hamil-
car. Nothing could be done at Carthage without money;
and it was necessary for Hamilcar, if he would hold
his own, not only to pay his troops but to remit large
sums to Carthage in order to keep his supporters there
together and to maintain his influence.^

Now it must have seemed to the eager eye of the
Carthaginian patriot as though Spain had been
created for the very purpose of supplying all these
various and conflicting wants. It was from Spain, if
from anywhere, and by Hamilcar, if by anyone, that

* Appian, Hisp. 5.

HAMILCAR CROSSES TO SPAIN. 179

Carthage might be saved. The previous history of the
Spanish peninsula, and its immemorial connexion with
the Phoenicians, the fathers of the Carthaginian race,
were all in favour of Hamilcar's projects. It was from
Tarshish, or Tartessus, the district abutting on the
very straits which he had to cross, that, as far back as
the time of Solomon, had come the strange animals and
the rich minerals which were landed in the harbours
of Phoenicia proper, and which had so enlarged the
ideas and transformed the instincts of the untravelled
and exclusive Israelites.^ It was from Tartessus, as
the story went, that some Phoenician sailors had once
returned to their native country laden with so much
wealth that they were fain to take the lead off their
very anchors and to put silver on them in its stead.
What wonder, after this, that we are told that * silver
was little accounted of in the days of Solomon ' } In
more recent times Gades (Gaddir), on almost the same
spot, itself a Phoenician colony, and boasting of a
splendid temple to Melcarth, the patron god of both
Tyre and Carthage, had served as an emporium for
the products alike of the Scilly Isles and the Niger.
For centuries Phoenicians had thus found in Spain
what, centuries after, Spain herself was destined to find
in Mexico and Peru ; and it was principally to main-
tain her connexion with this Eldorado that that long
line of factories, known in later times as the Meta-
gonitcB UrbeSy had been planted at equal distances on
the most suitable points of the barren Mauritanian
coast. The Greeks themselves had their share of the

* See this admirably brought out in Stanley's Jewish Churchy chap,
xxvi. p. 1S2-187.

N 2

i8o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

inexhaustible spoils of Spain. It was from one of the
ports of Tartessus, *a virgin port/ as Herodotus calls
it, that in 630 B.C. a certain Samian, driven thither by
stress of weather or by a special providence,* had re-
turned laden with wealth to his native country, and
had given that stimulus to the Greek imagination and
to the thirst for geographical discovery which, in the
following century, carried thither the adventurous
Phocaeans, who in their turn became the friends of its
king and shared largely in his wealth.^ It was no
slight advantage, too, for Hamilcar's purposes, that
the connexion of Spain with Carthage had hitherto
been commercial only and not imperial ; otherwise the
deadly hatred which accompanied the spread of the
Carthaginian rule in Africa must have sprung up in
Spain as well, and Hamikar would have had as much
to do in pulling down as in building up, and his great
constructive genius would not have had free play.

It was into such a land of promise that Hamilcar
now passed. Its gold and silver mines, worked
henceforward by Phoenician enterprise and skill,
yielded many times as much as they had ever yielded
before. With part of the produce Hamilcar paid the
Spaniards themselves who had flocked to hi$ standard ;
but, as with his Libyan followers at Ercte and at
Eryx, it was the spell of his personal influence, far
more than the gold he was now able to promise and
to give them, which kept them ever afterwards indis-
solubly attached to him. Part he remitted annually
to Carthage, as the price he paid to her for being

* Herod, iv. 152. Ccfp ^ofxirp ;^c<i6/i6vot.
2 Herod, i. 163.

CHARACTER OF HAMILCAR. i8i

allowed to carry out his schemes for her safety and
her empire. His soldiers, his generals, his own son-
in-law, Hasdrubal, intermarried with the natives and
made their interests one with their own. For nine
long years — years to which Polybius, unfortunately,
has devoted scarcely as many lines * — Hamilcar
worked steadily on, with his eyes, indeed, fixed upon
the distant goal, but using no unworthy means in order
to reach it ; and when the end was almost in view,
when it seemed that he might himself carry out his
magnificent schemes, he died a soldier's death, fighting,
sword in hand, and left to the * lion's brood,' ^ as he
loved to call — and well might he call — his sons, the
rich but the dangerous heritcige of his genius, his
valour, and his undying hatred to Rome.

Of all the foreign nations — Phoenician, Roman,
Gothic, Vandal, Arab — which have occupied any con-
siderable part of Spain, two, and two only, have
governed it in its own interests, and, in spite of diffe-
rences of creed and of race, have governed it, on the
whole, with toleration, with humanity, and with good
faith. The one was the Barcine family of Carthage, the
other the Ommiade Khalifs of Arabia. Of the hero-
prophet, sprung eight centuries later from the kindred
Arabian stock, it was remarked by the ambassadors
who had been sent to him in his exile at Medina, that
they had seen the Persian Chosroes and the Greek
Heraclius sitting upon their thrones, but never had

' Polyb. ii. I. 5-8 ; Livy, xxi. I ; Com. Nepos, Hamilcar , iv. 2 ;
Val. Max. ix. 3. 3 ext.

2 Val. Maximus, ix. 3. 2 ext., * Quatuor enim puerilis aetatis filios
intuens, ejusdem numeri catiUos leoninos in pemiciem imperii nostri
alere se praedicabat.*

i82 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

they seen a man ruling his equals as did Mohammed.
Like Mohammed, Hamilcar Barca never sat upon a
throne. He was a simple citizen of Carthcige ; hated
or feared by many, probably by a majority of his
fellow-citizens, thwarted by them whenever they could
thwart him, and carrying on his patriotic projects in
his solitary strength in that distant country, half rebel
and half runaway, half subject and half sovereign. We
know all too little of his heroic struggles in Sicily, of
his death-grapple with the revolted Libyans, and of
the achievements of the last nine years of his life, alike
in peace and war, in Spain. Did we know more the
world would, in all probability, admit that, in capacity
if not in performance, in desert if not in fortune, he
was the equal of his wonderful son. But we know at
least enough to justify the judgment passed half a
century later by one who was, assuredly, no friend to
Carthage, and yet who, in spite of his narrow Roman
prejudices, and his ^ Delmda est Carthago^ judging
solely by the traces he saw in Spain of what the great
man had done, pronounced emphatically that there
was * no king like Hamilcar.'

Hamilcar died in battle in the year B.c: 228. His
son Hannibal was then not quite nineteen years of
age, and was too young at once to succeed his father ;
but the command did not pass out of the family. It
devolved on Hasdrubal, the son-in-law and faithful
companion of Hamilcar, one who was endowed with
something of his military talents and with no small
part of his influence over men.* The empire which
Hamilcar had founded in Spain Hasdrubal organised

* Polyb. ii. 1.9; Livy, xxi. 2.

EARLY CAREER OF HANNIBAL. 183

and enlarged. Above all, he gave it a capital in New
Carthage/ a town which, from its admirable situation
on the south-east coast, from its convenient harbour,
and from its proximity to some rich silver mines which
were just then discovered,* seemed destined to be all
that its proud name implied, and to spread the Phoe-
nician arts and empire in Europe and the ocean
beyond, even as the Old Carthage had spread them
over the Mediterranean and in Africa. Tribe after
tribe of Iberians solicited the honour of enrolling
themselves as subjects of a power which knew how to
develope their resources in the interest of the natives
as much as in its own ; which found them work to do
and paid them well fordoing it ; and when Hasdrubal,
B.C. 221, in the eighth year of his command, fell by the
hand of a Celtic assassin,^ he had extended, in the
main, by peaceful means, the rule of the Barcides
from the Baetis to the Tagus.

. Hannibal was now in his twenty-sixth year. The
soldiers unanimously proclaimed him commander-in-
chief, and their choice was ratified by the Carthagi-
nian Government. He was still young for the Herculean
task which lay before him ; but he was strong in the
blood of Hamilcar which was flowing in his veins,
strong in the training which he had received, strong
above all in the consciousness of his religious mission ;
none the less so, that the secret of it remained locked
in his own breast till all chance of fulfilling it in its

* Polyb. ii. 13.

* Aletes, their discoverer, was worshipped by the Carthaginians as a
hero ; Polyb. x. 10.

* Polybius, ii. 36 ; Appian, Hisp, 8.

i84 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

entirety had passed away for ever. It was not till he
was an old man, living in exile at the court of King
Antiochus, but, even so, an object of suspicion and of
terror alike to the Syrian King and to the Roman
Senate, that he told the simple story of that which,
far more than military ambition, more even than the
love of country and the consciousness of his supreme
ability, had been the ruling motive of his life. In
his ninth year, so he told Antiochus, when his father,
Hamilcar, was about to set out for his command in
Spain, and was sacrificing to the supreme God of his
country, he bade the attendants withdraw, and asked
the little Hannibal if he would like to go with him to
the wars. The boy eagerly assented. * Lay your
hand then/ said Hamilcar, * on the sacrifice and
swear eternal enmity to the Romans.' Hannibal
swore, and well did he keep his oath.* It suits the
purposes of Livy to say that Hannibal was a man
' of worse than Punic faith, with no reverence for what
was true or sacred, serving no God, and keeping no
oath.' '^ The accusation is untrue in every point ; but
even Livy must have himself admitted that to this
oath, at least, he was true, that this God, at least, he
reverenced, and that this religious mission he kept
before his mind and carried out to the best of his
superlative ability, from that day even to the day of
his death. From the age of nine to eighteen he had
watched in silence the patient development of his
father's far-sighted designs. From eighteen to twenty-
five his had been, in the main, the hand to strike and

* Polyb. iii. ii ; Livy, xxi. i: xxxv. 19 ; Corn. Nep. Hann, 2 ;
Appian, Hisp, 9 ; Val. Max. ix. 3. 3 ext. * Livy, xxi. 4.

REMISSA^ESS OF ROMANS. 185

the will to cany out, while Hasdrubars had been the
mind to plan and the right to command ; * and now
in his twenty-sixth year he was called upon to stand
alone, to enter upon his great inheritance of obligation ;
and by his patience and his impetuosity, by his powers
of persuasion and of command, by his energy and his
inventiveness, by his arts and by his arms, to redeem
his early pledge.

But why had the Romans been looking calmly on
while the Barcine family were winning back for
themselves, and for the state at large in Spain, all,
and more than all, that they had lost in Sicily ? Partly
because they knew too little of Spain to trouble them-
selves about what was going on there ; partly because
they were thankful that Hamilcar, whom they feared
so much, could find such ample employment for his
abilities in a country from which, under any circum-
stances, as they thought, they need fear so little.
When at length their attention was arrested by the
rapid progress of Hasdrubal, they contented them-
selves with forming an alliance with one or two half-
Greek, half-Spanish states there, and with binding
Hasdrubal, so far as a treaty could bind him, not to
push his conquests beyond the line of the Ebro ^ — as
though such a treaty could do anything else than
show their own weakness and short-sightedness, and
encourage Hasdrubal to push his conquests fearlessly
up to the imaginary line, leaving ulterior measures to

* Livy, loc. cit. Corn. Nep. Hannibal, 3: * Equitatui omni praefuit; *
Livy, xxi. 4 : * Neque Hasdrubal alium quemqnam prgeficere malle ubi
quid fortiter ac strenue agendum esset.'

2 Polyb'. iii. 27 ; Livy, xxi. 6.

i86 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

the circumstances which might require them ! Such
formal declarations of mutual suspicion, whether they
refer to Spain or to Central Asia, bind no one, and de-
ceive no one, and they rarely survive the particular
emergency which seems to call for them.

There was, however, one good reason why the
Romans should not at that time do more than attempt
to fix paper boundaries to the Carthaginian dominion
in Spain, and why they should be content if only
they could postpone the beginning of the great
contest for a year or two, even by the most flimsy of
guarantees. They had to face a formidable enemy
nearer Rome.* The whole of the region to the north
of the Apennines and the Rubicon still belonged to
the Gauls, and one of their tribes, the Boii, who dwelt
between the Apennines and the Po, frightened at the
work of the popular champion Flaminius — the divi-
sion of the lands which had once belonged to their
Senonian brethren amongst the poorer citizens of
Rome — and fearing that their own turn would come
next, determined to anticipate the evil day. Sixty
years had passed since the terrible slaughter of the
Boii at Lake Vadimo ; and during these sixty years
the population had repaired its losses, had forgotten
its defeats, or, if it remembered them, remembered
them only to desire their revenge. The Insubrians
who dwelt beyond the Po promised their aid, and
rumour said that their number was being continually
augmented by the arrival of fresh bands of Gauls
from beyond the Alps.* A movement amongst the
Gauls was known by a name of terror {tumultus) even

* Polyb. i. 22. lO, II. « Polyb. ii. 22. I ; 23. I.

^RISING OF THE GAULS SUPPRESSED. 187

in the later days of the Republic, and at this time
the memories of the Allia and of the burning of Rome
were too fresh to allow the Roman Senate to take any
half-measures. A Gallic man and woman were buried
alive by order of the Senate in the Ox market, in hopes
of thus fulfilling the dread oracle which promised
a share of Roman soil to the Gauls. A lev^e en masse
of the military resources of the confederation was
decreed ; and those actually under arms in various
parts of the Roman dominions are said by Polybius
to have reached the astonishing number of 170,000
men. * Against such a nation under arms,' as Poly-
bius significantly adds, Hannibal was on the point
of marching with 20,000 men ! ^

But the terrors of the Gauls were destined, on
this occasion (B.C. 225), soon to pass away. The
Transalpine barbarians who fought, many of them,
stark naked, with two javelins {gcesa ^) in their hands,
or with swords that bent at the first blow, fell an easy
prey to the skilful dispositions of the Roman armies.
Surrounded by the two consuls near Telamon in
Etruria, they were almost exterminated, and the
Roman Capitol was filled with the standards and the
golden necklaces and the bracelets which were the
trophies of the victory.^ The Romans followed up

* Polyb. ii. 24. 17. The total number of men able to bear arms he
makes 700,000 ; besides 70,000 cavalry.

2 Hence called Gaesatae ; not, as Polybius says, because they served
as mercenaries (ii. 22. i). Cf. Virgil, ^neidy viii. 661 ;

* duo quisque Alpina coruscant

Gaesa manu, scutis protecti corpora longis.'

• Polyb. ii. 31. 5.

i88 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

their success with vigour, and transferred the war into
the enemy's country. The Boians suffered the fate
which they had anticipated and which they had in
vain tried to avert, and the name of Italy might be
now extended, on the east of the peninsula at all
events, to the line of the Po.

In the following year, C. Flaminius, a man whose
name has been already mentioned, and of whom we
shall hear again at a critical point in the Second Punic
War, led a Roman army, for the first time in their
history, across that river, and attacking the Insubrians,
took their capital city, Milan ; ^ while Marcellus, the
consul of the year B.C. 223, was able to dedicate, in
the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, the spolia opima which
he had taken in single combat from the Gallic chief-
tain. The Romans riveted their grasp on their new
conquests by founding, more suo, two new colonies,
Placentia and Cremona, on either side of the Po, and
by completing that imperishable monument of their
organizing and constructive genius, the Flaminia Via,
the great military road of Northern Italy, from Rome
to Ariminum.^ Nor were these precautions taken a
moment too soon ; for before the Romans had esta-
blished themselves firmly on the line of the Po, Han-
nibal was on the Ebro ; and to the surprise of the
Roman Senate, and the terror of not a few among the
Roman citizens, it was now apparent for the first
time that the approaching contest might possibly be
waged, not in Africa for the possession of Carthage,
but in Italy for the possession of Rome.

But we must now return to Hannibal. During

' Polyb. ii. 34. 15. * Polyb. iii. 46. 4, 5 ; Livy, Epit. xx.

HANNIBAL BESIEGES SAGUNTUM, 189

the first two years of his command (B.C. 221-219) the
young general had crossed the Tagus, and had re-
duced the whole of Spain to the south of the Ebro to
submission. But there was one exception. The town
of Sciguntum, a Greek colony — so the inhabitants
boasted — from Zacyn'hus,^ and near the site of the
modern Muriedro (Muri-veteres), though far to the
south of the Ebro, had formed an alliance with Rome ;
and Hasdrubal, nay Hannibal himself, had up to this
time forborne to attack it. Hannibal knew that he
could choose his own time for picking a quarrel, and
now the ground seemed clear before him. To the
Roman ambassadors who came to warn him not to
attack an ally of theirs, he gave an evasive answer,
and referred them to the Carthaginian Senate, while
he prosecuted the preparations for the siege with
redoubled vigour. With what powers of heroic en-
durance Spaniards can defend themselves in their
walled towns, all history, the names of Numantia and
Saragossa above all, can testify. No other Indo-
Germanic nation can be compared with them in this
respect. To find a parallel we must have recourse to
some branch of the great Semitic stock, to the Tyrians
or the Carthaginians themselves, to the Jews, or to
the Arabs. For eight months the Saguntines held
out, and when they could hold out no longer the
chiefs kindled a fire in the market-place, and threw
into it first their valuables and then themselves.
Hannibal, who had been wounded in the course of
the siege, divided a part of the booty amongst his

* Cf. Strabo, iii. p. 159 ; Livy, xxL 7, says that there were also
Rutulians amoDg the founders.

I90 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

troops ; a part he despatched to Carthage, in hopes
of committing those who received it beyond the hope
of recall to his great enterprise.^ He then retreated
into winter quarters at New Carthage, and dismissing
his Spanish troops to the enjoyments of their homes
for the winter, bade them return to the camp at the
approach of spring, prepared for whatever it might
bring forth.

The Romans had by their dilatoriness allowed
Saguntum to fall, but they were now not slow in
demanding satisfaction for it. An embassy was sent
direct to Carthage demanding the surrender of Han-
nibal, the author of the outrage, on pain of instant
war. The Romans fondly hoped that the Cartha-
ginian peace party would seize the opportunity of
compassing their chief end at the easy price of the
surrender of so troublesome a servant, or master, as
was Hannibal. But the gold of Hannibal had done
its work, and was more potent than Hanno's honied
tongue. The peace party dared hardly to mutter
their half-hearted counsels : and when Q. Fabius, the
chief of the embassy, held up his toga, saying, * I
carry here peace and war ; choose ye which ye will
have ;^ — * Give us whichever you please,' replied the
Carthaginians. ' War, then,' said Fabius ; and the
decision was greeted, as is usual in times of such
excitement, by the short-sighted acclamations of the
masses.^ They feel the enthusiasm of the moment ;
they do not realise its tremendous responsibility.
They see with their minds' eye the pomp and pride

* Polybius, iii. 15 ; Livy, xxi. 14, 15 ; Floras, ii. 6. 6.

* Polyb. iii. 33. 1-4.

IVAR DECLARED. 191

and circumstance of war ; they do not see its horrors
and its devastations. They hear the din of prepara-
tion ; they are deaf, till it is too late, to the cry of
agony or to the wail of the bereaved ; else war would
never, as experience proves it so often is, be welcomed
as a boon ; it would be submitted to only as the most
dire necessity.

The die was now cast, and the arena was cleared
for the foremost man of his race and his time, per-
haps the mightiest military genius of any race and of
any time — one with whom, in this particular, it were
scant justice to compare either Alexander, or Caesar,
or Marlborough, and who, immeasurably above him as
he is in all moral qualities, may, on the score of mili-
tary greatness, be named without injustice in the same
breath as Napoleon, and Napoleon alone.

192 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

^

CHAPTER X.

SECOND PUNIC WAR.

(b.C 218-2QI.)

PASSAGE OF THE RHONE AND THE ALPS, B.C. 218.

•

Preparations of Haimibal — He determines to go by land —Numbers of
his army — His march through Gaul— His passage of the Rhone —
Vagueness of ancient writers in geographical matters — Passage
over Alps selected by Hannibal — Route by which he approached it
— The first ascent — Valley of the Isere — The main ascent — The
summit — Hannibal addresses his troops — The descent — Interest
attaching to the passage of the Alps — Its cost and results — The * War
of Hannibal.*

There was still a brief interval of preparation before
the rival nations could meet in battle-array, and Han-
nibal utilised it to the utmost It was late in the
year 219. He had already, as has been mentioned,
dismissed his Spanish troops for the winter to their
homes, well assured that they would return with re*
doubled ardour in the spring. But the hours of his
own enforced retirement were not given to idleness.
He took measures for the safety of Spain during his
absence by garrisoning it with 15,000 trusty Libyans,
while Libya he garrisoned with as many trusty Spa-
niards, thus making, in a certain sense, each country

/.

-». -Si

HANNIBAL RESOLVES TO ATTACK BY LAND, 193

a security for the good behaviour of the other.^ The
supreme command in Spain he committed to his
younger brother, Hasdrubal ; and during the winter
friendly messages passed and repassed between New
Carthage and the chieftains of Transalpine and Cis-
alpine Gaul.^ It is said that negotiations were carried
on even with Antigonus, king of Macedonia, to arrange
for a combined attack on Italy from east and west at
once.

But was Italy to be reached by land or sea ? The
Phoenicians had not yet lost their maritime skill ; the
sea was their home ; and, had the Carthaginians so
willed it, a fleet might have been collected in the
harbour of New Carthage which probably could have
bidden defiance to any that the Romans could have
raised against it. The dangerous Sicilian waters,
which had proved so fatal in the first Punic War,
might be avoided in the second ; and even if the
Carthaginian mariners had not the heart to take the
passage across the open sea to Italy, a coasting voyage
of some few days might have landed them safely in
one of the Ligurian or North Etruscan harbours; and,
as the event proved, the Romans would have then
been ill prepared to receive them. Why, then, did
Hannibal, the greatest product of the Phoenician race,
perhaps of all the Semitic races — and certainly the
noblest embodiment of the national spirit and will of
Carthage — prefer a land journey which involved the
crossing of broad and rapid rivers, of lofty and of un-
known mountain chains, and amidst races proverbial
for their fickleness and faithlessness ; a journey which

* Polyb. iii. 33. 5-8; Livy, xxi. 21-22. * Polyb. iii. 34. I-6.

O

194 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

would take months instead of days, and which, if it
failed at all, must fail altogether ? Was it that the
Carthaginian Government was backward or unable to
supply the ships ? or was it that Hannibal miscal-
culated the distance and under-estimated the dangers
of the route which he chose ? Perhaps both in part. It
is no slur upon the military qualities of the great Car-
thaginian to suppose that he did not fully realise the
difficulties of the task he was undertaking, a task
which no description given by interested and friendly
mountaineers could have brought adequately home to
him. But what, no doubt, especially determined him
to make the attempt was the alliance which he had
already concluded with the formidable tribes of Gaul
itself and of Northern Italy. More than once in history
these same Gauls, unaided and undisciplined, by their
mere numbers and their valour, had imperilled the
very existence of Rome ; and of what might they not
be capable when fighting for their own existence
against her ever-encroaching power, and when led on
by himself, with his Libyan and Spanish veterans to
form the nucleus of his army, and with his Numidian
horse to scour the country, or to follow up a defeat }
Swooping down from the Alps on the rich fields of
Italy, his numbers swelled by the reinforcements he
would have gathered in his course from Farther Gaul,
he would, by a first success, rally all their brethren in
Hither Gaul to his standard. The basis of his opera-
tions for the Italian war would then be no longer
Spain or Gaul, but Italy itself; and it would be
strange indeed if the Samnites and the Etruscans,
the Umbrians and the Lucanians, whom Rome had

NUMBER OF HANNIBAL'S ARMY. 195

so recently and so hardly conquered, did not flock to
his standard as he swept victoriously on towards the
South to reek condign vengeance on the common
oppressor of them all. Such were the hopes, not
altogether ill-founded, with which Hannibal under-
took the gigantic enterprise which astonished and still
astonishes the world.

The army with which he set out from New Car-
thage early in the summer of 218, consisted of 90,000
foot, of 12,000 horse, and of thirty-seven elephants ; a
force far smaller than that which the Carthaginians
had often employed before in their petty conflicts
with the Sicilian Greeks.* He crossed the Ebro, and,
not without heavy loss to himself, subdued the hostile
Spanish tribes beyond that river who, so far as a
treaty could make them so, were already the allies of
Rome, and, as the Romans believed, a firm bulwark
against Carthaginian encroachments. Leaving Hanno
with 10,000 foot and i,C)oq horse to hold the country
which he had conquered, he actually sent back to their
homes 10,000 more of his already much-thinned army,
men whom, like Gideon at the Well of Trembling,
he saw to be faint-hearted and therefore cared not to
retain in his service. Then, confident in those that
remained, and in the future, he crossed the Pyrenees
and, without opposition from the Gallic tribes, reached
the Rhone in safety.^

The Romans, as behindhand in their arms as in

• The numbers given in the text rest on the statement inscribed by
Hannibal himself on a brazen pillar, in the temple of Juno Lacinia, just
before he left Italy for Africa. This inscription was read by Polybius.
Polyb. ii. 33., 18, and 56. 4.

2 Polyb. iii. 35 and 40 ; Livy, xxi. 23-24.

02

196 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

their diplomacy, still, it would seem, believed that the
contest which was beginning would be fought out at
a distance from their own shores. Had not the battle-
field of the contending forces been fixed by treaty
many years before in Northern Spain, and was not P.
Cor. Scipio about to proceed thither in due course with
sixty ships and with an army to confine the Car-
thaginian youth to his proper domain, while the
other Consul, Tib. Sempronius, was to cross into
Sicily, to transfer the war thence to Africa and to bring
it to a rapid conclusion there by besieging Carthage
itself } ^ Scipio, as had been arranged, started from Pisa,
and, coasting leisurely along to Marseilles, learned to his
extreme surprise that Hannibal had already crossed the
Ebro and the Pyrenees, and was in full march through
Gaul. The truth now dawned upon him. He sent
out three hundred of his bravest cavalry, with Celtic
guides, to look for Hannibal, and they soon met four
hundred Numidian cavalry who had been despatched
by Hannibal for a like purpose. In the encounter
which ensued the Romans got the advantage, and
pursued the retreating Numidians to the Carthaginian
camp ; but they took back to their general the start-
ling news that Hannibal had already left the Rhone
behind him, and that they had seen the Carthaginians
encamped on its eastern side.^ Had Scipio reached
the Rhone a week sooner, as he well might have
done, he would have found allies there, whose aid,
combined with the advantages of their position, might
have enabled him to check the further advance of the
Carthaginians ; for though Hannibal, by his previous

• Polyb. iii. 40. 2. • Polyb. iii. 45 ; Livy, xxi. 29.

HANNIBALS PASSAGE OF THE RHONE. 197

negotiations, had cleared the way for himself to the
river's edge, yet, owing to the difficulty of getting boats
to cross it, he had given the smouldering opposition
time to blaze forth, and a large force of Gauls had
assembled on the other side to oppose his passage.

Well knowing that a prolonged delay might render
the Alps impassable for that year, and, if for that
year, perhaps for ever, Hannibal sent Hanno with a
considerable force two short days' march up the river
to a point whence he could cross unopposed. After a
brief pause to refresh his men, Hanno moved down
the left of the stream and kindled the beacon fires for
which Hannibal was anxiously waiting. He had
already laden with his light-armed horsemen the boats
which he had hired from the natives, while the canoes
which he had extemporised were filled with the most
active of his infantry, and he now gave the order to
put across. The signal was obeyed with alacrity ; and
the horses swam the stream, attached by ropes to the
boats which carried their riders. Down poured the
barbarians in disorder from their fortified camp, fully
confident that they could bar the passage ; but the
flaming camp behind them, and the fierce onset of
Hanno*s force upon their rear, showed them that they
had been out-generalled, and they fled in confusion,
leaving Hannibal to transport the rest of his army in
peace.* The army rested that night on the Italian
side of the river, and on the following day the most
unwieldy, and not the least sagacious part of his
force, the thirty-seven elephants, were cajoled, as at
Messana, in the first Punic War, after the battle of

* Polyb. iii. 42, 43 ; Livy, xxi. 27-2S.

198 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Panormus, into entrusting themselves to a raft.
Some, in their blind panic, leapt into the mid river,
drowning their drivers ; but raising instinctively their
trunks above their heads, they reached the opposite
bank in safety.*

But the real difficulties of the undertaking were
only now beginning. The assurances given by the
Boian or the Insubrian messengers who had just
arrived, that the mountain passes were not so difficult,
and the few inspiriting words addressed by Hannibal
to his troops, fell upon willing, because upon ill-
informed ears. How little accurate knowledge of the
localities through which he had to pass Hannibal can
have gained even by the most careful enquiries, is
evident from the obscurity which has always hung
over his march itself. That march riveted the
attention of the world; it was described by eye-
witnesses, and one great historian, at least, who lived
within fifty years of the events he was recording, took
the trouble to go over the ground and verify for him-
self the reports which had reached him. Yet many
of its details and even its general direction are still
matters of dispute. The fact is that the ancients,
even the most observant of them, had no eye for the
minute observation of nature, and no wish to describe
its phenomena in detail. Happy epithets indeed,
which live for all time, we find in the poets of ancient
as well as of modern times, but there is little minute
analysis even in them, while with historians and other
prose writers, stock epithets almost always do duty.
An island is always, or nearly always lofty,^ a moun-

* Polyb. iii. 46. 12; Livy, xxi. 38.

* Cf. Virgil, ^n, iii. 76: *Mycono e cels^' an island which really

PASSAGE OVER THE ALPS SELECTED, 199

tain pass always inaccessible, a mountain slope always
slippery, and little more. It may be doubted whether
in the whole range of classical literature half-a-dozen
landscapes have been so accurately described as to
enable us to identify them in anything like detail.
Accordingly there is hardly a pass in the whole
Western Alps which has not been made — as though
they were cities contending for the honour of a Homer's
birth — to lay claim, with some show of reason, to be the
scene of Hannibal's march. Yet broad geographical
facts, and the few data of time and place given by
Polybius, enable us, in the light of recent researches,
to restrict the choice to two, if not to one, of the total
number.^

The route by the sea coast, though it presented
the fewest physical difficulties, Hannibal avoided,
probably because to enter Italy by it would, he

lies very low, and is actually called humilis by Ov. Met, vii. 463 ; cf.
^n. ix. 716: * Prochyta alta.' See the remarks of Ihne, Roman Hist,
ii. 171-173 ; and Arnold, iii. pp. 478, 479.

* See especially Dissertation on the Passage of Hannibal aver the
Alps, by Wickham and Cramer (1820) ; The March of Hannibal from
the Rhone to the Alps, by H. L. Long (1831) ; Italian Valleys of the
Pennine Alps, by S. W. King (1858); The Alps of Hannibal, by
W. J. Law (1866). General Melville was the earliest modem advo-
cate of the Little St. Bernard route. He was followed by De Luc in
1 81 8, and Long and Law have endorsed and confirmed their conclu-
sions. Among recent historians of Rome, Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen,
and Ihne are unanimous for the Little St. Bernard ; and the discovery of
elephants' bones in this pass, reported as far back as J 769, by the advo-
cate of another route, is an additional confirmation of the view taken in
the text. The chief modern advocate of the Mont Cenis route is the Rev,
R. Ellis (1867), and his views are adopted by Ball in his Alpine Guide,
pp. 55, 56. Antonio Gallenga, the historian of Piedmont, still supports
the claims of Mont Gen^vre, while several French and German writers
— Desgranges, Duparcq, and Zander — prefer the Monte Viso route.

2cx> CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

thought, involve him in immediate collision with the
Ligurians as well as the Roman armies, and would
allow the Gauls to await the issue of his first attack,
instead of compelling them to throw in their lot at
once for better or worse with him. The pass over
the Cottian Alps, Mont Gen^vre, which seems to be
the route supported by Livy and by Strabo, was near-
est indeed to the spot where Hannibal had crossed
the Rhone ; but the approaches to it were difficult, and
it would have landed Hannibal in the territory of the
Taurini, a Ligurian tribe, which was just then at war
with his friends the Insubrians. The Great St.
Bernard and the Simplon are much too remote for
the distances given, with some precision, by Polybius.
The choice, therefore, seems narrowed to the two inter-
mediate passes of the Little Mont Cenis, to the north
of the Cottian, and the Little St. Bernard to the north
of the Graian Alps. Mont Cenis appears to have been
unknown to the ancients as a practicable passage ;
moreover it would, like Mont Genevre, have brought
Hannibal down among hostile Ligurian tribes. The
Little St. Bernard, on the other hand, was not only
the easiest of approach and one of the lowest available
passes, being only 7,000 feet high, but once and again
in history, it had already poured down the Celts of
the north upon the plains of Italy. It was in fact the
highway between Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul.
Where Celtic tribes had passed before, the expected
ally and deliverer of the Celts might well pass now,
and with this hypothesis nearly all the facts given by
Polybius will be found to agree. On the Italian side
of the pass lay the Salassians, the hereditary friends

VALLEY OF THE IS ERE. 20i

of the Insubrians, who would give their messengers,
as they passed to and fro, a safe conduct, and would
secure to Hannibal himself the rest and refreshment
which after his own passage he would so sorely need.*
But if we assume, as the evidence on the whole
seems to entitle us to do, that the Little St. Bernard
was the pass selected by Hannibal, there is still some
difficulty in determining the route by which he
approached it. He had crossed the Rhone at a spot
* nearly four days' journey from the sea,* ^ probably the
reach above Roquemaure. He marched thence, we are
told, four days up the river to the spot where the
Is^re joins the Rhone, the apex of the triangle, after-
wards called the * Island of the Allobroges,* and com-
pared by Polybius, with his rough geographical
notions, to the delta of the Nile.^ It was then, as
now, populous and well cultivated, and Hannibal, it
would seem, preferred to continue his march north-
ward through its champaign country rather than to
take the shorter route eastward by following at once
the mountain valley of the Is^re. There would be
enough of mountain climbing later on. Accordingly
he followed the course of * the river ' northward, as
far probably as Vienne ; then, turning eastwa/-d, he
took the part of one of two rival brothers whom he
found contending for the throne, and so obtained

* The contest on the subject was hot even in the time of Livy (xxi.
38) ; yet it is clear from him that Caelius Antipater, who followed the
account of Silenus the companion of Hannibal, adopted the Little St.
Bernard route. The *Cremonisjugum,' there spoken of, is clearly *the
Cramont,* the mountain on the Italian side of the Little St. Bernard, ris-
ing on the left side of the Baltea valley, between it and the All^e Blanche.
* Polyb. iii. 42. I, natd r^v avK^v (t^iy, * Polyb. iii. A9. 57.

202 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

from him supplies of food and clothing and trusty
guides.^ Then, once more striking the Rhone where
it leaves the frontiers of Savoy, he reached the first
outwork of the Alps, probably the Mont du Chat, a
chain 4,000 ft high.^

Hannibal had taken ten days to cross the Island
of the Allobroges, and had hitherto met with no
difficulty or mishap of any kind ; but here, where the
great physical difficulties began, the first symptoms
of open hostility appeared also. The native guides
had returned to their master, and amidst the precipi-
tous ravines the Numidian cavalry were no longer
formidable. The one track over the mountains, the
Chevelu Pass, was occupied by the mountaineers in
force ; but Hannibal, learning that it was their
practice to return to their homes for the night, lighted
his camp fires, as usual, at nightfall, and, leaving the
bulk of his army behind, climbed the steep in the
darkness with the most active of his troops, and
occupied the position which had been just vacated by
the natives. Slowly and toilfully on the following
day his army wound up the pass, aware that Hannibal
was waiting to receive them at its head, but exposed
to loss and to annoyance at every step from the
attacks of the enemy who moved along the heights
above. The path was rough and narrow, and the
horses and the sumpter animals, unused to such
ground and scared by the confusion, lost their footing,
and either rolled headlong down the precipices them-
selves, or jostling against their fellows in the agony of
their wounds, rolled them down with the baggage

» Polyb. iii. 49. 8-12. 2 Polyb. iii. 50. i.

THE MAIN ASCENT. 203

which they carried. To an army crossing a lofty
mountain, baggage and provisions are a matter of life
and death, and Hannibal risked his own life and
those of his few brave followers to save the rest.
Charging along the heights he put the enemy to
flight, and the immediate peril was surmounted. He
then attacked the town (Bourget .?) which lay at the
farther end of the pass. Its inhabitants were still on
the mountains, but he found within its walls a supply
of provisions for three days, and recovered some of
his horses and men who had been taken prisoners
in the passage.^ It was not likely that he would
be molested by these mountaineeers, at all events,
again.

For the next three days Hannibal followed the
Tarentaise, or the rich valley of the Isere, which he
had struck on his descent from the pass, and there
was now no symptom of hostility or opposition. On
the fourth day, the people whose homesteads he was
passing, presented themselves to him, bearing garlands
and branches of trees, the signs of goodwill, and
proffering provisions, nay, even hostages, as pledges of
their sincerity. But the wary Carthaginian was not
to be deceived by a foe who offered him gifts. On the
one hand, it would not do roughly to refuse the alli-
ance which they offered him, for that would be to make
them enemies at once and to prevent the tribes
beyond, who might be better disposed, from joining
him ; on the other hand, he would trust nothing to
them. He received them kindly, accepted their pro-
visions and their hostages, but pursued his march as

» Polyb. iii. 50, 51.

204 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

one prepared for treachery. The cavalry and beasts
of burden led the way, and at some distance behind
came Hannibal himself with his infantry. They were
now entering the defile which leads up to the main
mountain wall of the Alps, the one barrier which still
separated Hannibal from the land of his hopes, and
the cliffs rose more precipitously above, and the
torrent (the R6clus) foamed more angrily below,
as they neared the spot where both would be left
behind.^

Hardly were the infantry well entangled in the
defile, when the stones which came thundering down
from the heights above showed that the barbarians had
at length thrown off the mask. The destruction of the
whole army seemed imminent ; but Hannibal drew up,
or rather drew back, his part of it to an escarpment of
white rock,^ which rose in a strong position facing the
entrance of the gorge, far enough back, it would seem,
to be out of the reach of the descending stones, but
not so far as that he could not keep the attention of
the enemy concentrated on himself. The cavalry at the
head of the column pressed on almost unmolested till
they emerged into more open and therefore safer
ground. Had it only occurred to the barbarians to
direct their attack on them, the horses plunging, in
their terror, on that narrow and treacherous pathway
would have precipitated each other into the abyss
below. The white gypsum rock — la roche blanche —
as it is called by the natives, still stands conspicuous
in front of the grey limestone mountain which towers

* Polyb. iii. 52.

* Polyb. iii. 53. 5, npi rt K^vn^nr^ov 6xvp6u.

HANNIBAL ADDRESSES HIS TROOPS. 205

above it ; and here, if at no earlier point in the route,
the traveller may well feel that he is treading the very
'ground which Hannibal trod, and looking upon the
solemn assemblage of peaks and pinnacles, of moun-
tain torrent and of mountain valley, on which his
eager eye must have rested in this supreme moment
of anxiety and peril. Here Hannibal stood to arms,
with half his forces, the whole night through ; and the
following morning everything like organised resist-
ance had disappeared from the cliffs which flanked
the pass. And on the ninth day the whole cavalcade
reached the summit in safety.

It was only nine days since Hannibal had begun
the first ascent of the Alps, but they were days of
hard work and danger, and he now rested for a time
to recruit his troops, and to allow stragglers to rejoin
him. But no stragglers came. Those who had dropped
behind from exhaustion or from their wounds, on
such a route, were not likely to be heard of more.
Only some beasts of burden which had lagged behind,
or had slipped down the rocks, had in the struggle for
bare life managed to regain their feet, and, following
instinctively the footprints of the army, now came
draggling in one after the other, half dead from star-
vation and fatigue.^ It was a sorry spot on which to
recruit. It was late in October ; the snows were
gathering thick on the peaks above the Col ; and the
troops who had been drawn from burning Africa or
from sunny Spain shivered in the mountain air, which
is keen and frosty even in the height of summer.
Rest only gave them time to recollect the difficulties

' Polyb. iii. 53. 9- 10.

2o6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

through which they had so hardly passed, and to
picture, perhaps to magnify, the perils which were still
to come.

Symptoms of despondency appeared ; but Han-
nibal, seizing the opportunity, called his troops to-
gether and addressed them in . a few stirring words.
There was one topic of consolation and only one.
Below their feet lay one of the Italian valleys, and
winding far away among its narrow lawns and
humble homesteads could be seen the silver thread
of one of the feeders of the Baltea torrent which leapt
forth from where they stood. It seemed in the clear
atmosphere, which Alpine climbers know so well, that
they had but to take a step or two down, and to be
in possession. 'The people who dwell along that
river,' cried Hannibal in the inspiration of the moment,
'are your sworn friends. Ye are standing already,
as ye see, on the Acropolis of Italy ; yonder,' and he
pointed to the spot in the far horizon, where, with his
mind's eye, he could see the goal of all his hopes, and
the object of his inextinguishable and majestic hate,
' yonder lies Rome.'

It is, doubtless, difficult to reconcile the exact
phrases reported to have been used by Hannibal with
the very limited view to be obtained from the Little St.
Bernard,^ and the story has accordingly been treated
by modern historians, sometimes as an argument for
preferring one of the rival routes, such as that over
the Mont Cenis, sometimes as a mere flourish of

* Polyb. iii. 54. 2, r^v t^j 'IraAfaj Mpiytiav . . . MiiKvifk^vos avrois
rh, K€p\ rhv UdZoy 'wtBla ; Livy, xxi. 35, * Italiam ostentat subjectosque
Alpinis montibus circumpadanos campos.'

THE DESCENT. 207

rhetoric. It is therefore well to remark that the ge-
neral truth of the story rests on the authority not only
of the brilliant and imaginative Livy, but of the
sober-minded and strictly accurate Polybius. Nor is
it likely that the greatest general of ancient times,
and he, one who knew the hearts of men, as Hannibal
undoubtedly did, would neglect the opportunity, the
unparalleled opportunity, which the summit of the
Alps afforded him of bidding his soldiers derive fresh
hopes for the future from the perils which they had
already undergone and from the prize which seemed
to lie beneath their feet. The proclamations of the
great modern master of the art of war — that, for
instance, in which he told his soldiers of the 'forty
centuries which looked down upon them from the
Pyramids ' — may perhaps seem to us who read them
coolly at this distance of time, and who have been
able to gauge the true character of the man who
framed them, to contain much of vapid rhetoric and
to be as offensive as they are unreal. But they did
not seem so to the soldiers to whom they were ad*
dressed, nor to the feverish and lacerated nation
which lay behind them, nor even to the affrighted
peoples of Europe whose common happiness and
safety they menaced. On the contrary, it is not too
much to say, that the proclamations of Napoleon did
as much as the glamour of his victories, or the charms
of his personal presence, to disguise from his own
country the load of misery which he brought upon her,
and to throw a veil over his reckless disregard of
human life, his colossal meanness, his insincerity, his
ingratitude. Hannibal, as forgetful of self as Na-

2o8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

poleon was absorbed in it, and having to hold in hand
the soldiers not of one but of many nations, could not
afford to neglect any help which Nature offered him
in his arduous, his almost impossible, enterprise. We
may well believe, therefore, that he made the most of
this. The spirits of his men rose at his words, and on
the morrow the descent began.

After a toilsome climb the first steps of a descent
are always pleasantly deceptive, and there was now
no sign of an enemy, unless indeed a few skulking
marauders might be so called. But tfie descent Avas not
less dangerous, and perhaps still more destructive, than
the ascent. The Alps rise more sheer from the plain
on the Italian than on the French side, and the slope
is almost everyw^here steeper. The snow too began
to fall, hiding dangers which would otherwise have
stared them in the face. A false step on such a gra-
dient would have been fatal anyhow, and the curtain
of snow made false steps to be both numerous and
inevitable. The army had to cross what seems to
have been, in the greater cold which was then pre-
valent throughout Europe, a glacier or an ice slope
covered with a thin coating of newly fallen snow.
This was soon trampled into a solid sheet of ice, on
which the men kept slipping and rolling down, while
the beasts of burden, breaking through the bridges of
frozen snow, which concealed crevasses beneath, stuck
fast and were frozen to death. At last, the head of
the column reached a projecting crag round which
neither man nor beast could creep. An avalanche or
a landslip had carried away some three hundred yards
of the track, and even the eye of Hannibal failed to

DANGERS OF THE D ESC EM. 209

discover a practicable route elsewhere.' Destruction
stared the army in the face ; but Hannibal drew them
off to a kind of hog's back, from which the snow had
been just shovelled, and, pitching his camp there, di-
rected his men with such engineering skill, and with
such implements as they could muster, to repair the
broken passage. Never was an Alpine road made
under greater difficulties ; but the men worked for their
lives, and by the following day thp horses were able
to creep round the dangerous spot, and to descend
till they found a scanty herbage. The elephants,
owing to their uncouth appearance, had hitherto en-
joyed immunity from the attacks of the natives ; but
they too now had their share of suffering. It was three
whole days before the roadway was sufficiently wide
and strong for them to pass. On the high Alps on
which they then were, neither tree nor pasture could
be found,^ and from regions of Arctic rigour these in-
habitants of the torrid zone made their way down,

* The gorge below La Tuile, in the valley of the Baltea, corre-
sponds, and in a most remarkable manner, with the description of
Polybius. Though it is only some 4,000 feet above the level of the
sea, it is often choked with masses of frozen snow the whole summer
through ; and avalanches descending into it from the peaks of Mont
Favre above, sweep the road, which formerly ran along the left bank
of the torrent, for a distance of 300 yards, i.e. exactly the stadium
and a half of Polybius. This old road has been long since aban-
doned, and a new one has been constructed which, being on the right
bank of the torrent, is secure from the danger which all but proved
fatal to Hannibal. (See the authorities referred to above, p. 199.)

' Polyb. iii. 55. 9, t€A.^«s ftSevSpa Kal ^tX<i icdan' iffrl; cf. ex con.
Livy, xxi. 37. Juvenal, Sat. x. 153; *Diducit scopulos et montes
rumpit aceto. *

P

2IO CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

half dead with cold and hunger. The massive trees
which the Carthaginians felled and burned to soften
the rocks, and the rivers of vinegar with which Han-
nibal melted them in this dangerous spot, exist only
in the imagination of Livy. So astounding was the
miracle of the crossing of the Alps, that it is no
matter for surprise if other lesser miracles were be-
lieved to have accompanied it. After the great danger
had been surmounted, the descent became more prac-
ticable. The eyes of the perishing soldiers were soon
gladdened with the sight of umbrageous trees, of up-
land lawns, and even of human habitations, and three
days saw them safe in the valley of Aosta below.

The passage had been accomplished ; and twenty-
two centuries have failed to exhaust the interest and
the admiration with which the world regards alike the
exploit itself and the hero who could plan and exe-
cute it. The voluminous literature which the nine-
teenth century has produced in almost every European
language on the one subject of the passage of the Alps
is a striking proof of this. The great epic poet who
appreciated, if any Roman did, the grandeur of the
city which his countrymen had destroyed, and who
was able by his genius to turn the blind fear and
hatred with which they still regarded its memory into
a romantic and almost a filial attachment — for had
not Carthage given shelter to the wandering ^neas
and laid her queen at his feet ? — speaks, in a spirited
passage, of Carthage, not as pouring down ruin on
Rome through the Alps which she had burst open,
but rather as ' hurling those opened Alps themselves
in dire destruction on the city : '

THE PASSAGE ACCOMPLISHED, 211

' ' ■ .,-— I ■ !»■■■■ ■■■! -■,■■■■■■— I.. -■■■■,

* Adveniet justum pugnae, ne arcessite, tempus,
Cum fera Carthago Romanis arcibus olim
Exitium magnum atque Alpes immittet apertas.' ^

It is a splendid license of language ; but it may be
questioned whether it would have seemed any license
at all, either to the panic-stricken populations who saw
Hannibal with their own eyes swoop down upon them
from the Alps with ever gathering strength, or to
their descendants who had only heard of it from their
grandsires.

The passage — 1,200 stadia of mountain climbing
— had been accomplished ; but was it worth the price
which had been paid for it ? Of the army which had
crossed the Pyrenees scarcely half had lived to cross
the Alps. Without provisions, without a commissa- ,
riat, without even an assured base of operations, or
the certainty of reinforcements, Hannibal was about
to enter on a war which stands forth without a
parallel in ancient history. With 20,000 foot and
6,000 horse he was about to attack a power which
had only lately put into the field to serve against the
Gauls an army of 170,000 men. And in what con-
dition was this handful, this forlorn hope, of soldiers ?
The cold and hunger, and exposure and fatigue, of
fifteen days of mountaineering had done their work
with them. ' They had been reduced to the condition
of beasts,' says the accurate and unimaginative Greek
historian ; ^ ' they looked not like men but like their
phantoms or their shadows,' said the Roman general

* Virg. y£«. X. 1 1- 1 3.

* Polyb. iii. 60. 1-6, oiov iLwor€0ripiufi4voi irdifrti ^<ray. Livy, xxi.
40, * effigies, immo umbrae hominum.'

P 5?

212 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

who was about to meet them in the field, and, as he
thought, like shadows to sweep them away. Under
any general but Hannibal, and, it may almost be
added, with any enemy who were not so dilatory as
the Romans, the remnant of the Carthaginian army
would have conquered the Alps only to perish in the
plains of the Po. That Hannibal crossed the Alps is
a marvel ; but that with troops so weakened he was
able after a few days' delay to chastise the hostile
barbarians, to take from them their city of Turin, to
force some of them to join his army, and then to face
all the power of Rome, is a greater marvel still.

It is difficult throughout this period of the war,
and, indeed, throughout the whole of it, to withdraw
the attention even for a moment from its presiding
genius. With sound judgment did the Romans, who
calumniated his character and tried sometimes to make
light even of his abilities, call the war which was now
beginning, not the Second Punic War, but the War
of Hannibal. His form it was which haunted their
imagination and their memories ; his name was for cen-
turies the terror of old and of young alike. Nearly two
hundred years later the frivolous and the pleasure-
loving Horace pays Hannibal the homage of a mention
which is always serious and often awe-stricken. Once
in his odes he is ' the perfidious,' but three times over
he is ' the dread Hannibal ;' and rising, with a thrill of
horror, into epic dignity, he compares the march of
the Carthaginian through Italy to the careering of
the east wind over those Sicilian waters which had
engulfed so many Roman fleets, or to that most
terrible and magnificent of sights, the rush of the
flames through a blazing forest of pines.

SCI P 10 RETURNS TO GAUL. 213

CHAPTER XL

BATTLES OF TREBIA AND TRASIMENE.

(B.C. 218-217.)

P. Scipio returns from Italy to Gaul — Sempronius recalled from Sicily
— Battle of the Ticinus — Hannibal crosses the Po — He is joined by
the Gauls — Retreat of Scipio to the Trebia — Hannibal selects his
ground and time — Battle of the Trebia— Results of the victory — Han-
nibal crosses the Apennines — The marshes of the Amo — Position of
the Roman armies — Flaminius and his antecedents — Despondency
at Rome — Resolution of Flaminius — He follows Hannibal from
Arretium — Livy and Polybius compared — Position chosen by Han-
nibal — Battle of the Trasimene lake — Death of Flaminius,

It is time now to ask what the Romans were doing to
meet the storm. Publius Scipio, after his encounter
with the enemy's cavalry on the Rhone, had marched
up the river to the camp which Hannibal had just
left, and discovering that he was already off for Italy
had flattered his soldiers and, perhaps, himself, by repre-
senting his march as a flight. He showed, however,
that he was himself alive to the gravity of the occasion
by returning at once to Italy, while he sent his brother
Cneius with the bulk of his army on to Spain. Had
Scipio been a man of commanding ability, had he
been a Hannibal, he might have taken the responsi-
bility upon himself of overruling the orders of the

214 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Senate and diverting the whole expedition from the
country which, as circumstances had proved, did not
then need it to that which needed it immediately and
imperatively. Had he hastened back by sea with all his
force from Marseilles to Genoa, he might have pushed
up at once through the friendly Ligurian tribes to the
base of the very pass over which Hannibal was crossing,
and have overwhelmed him on his first arrival. If the
struggle should be prolonged, it was doubtless all-
important that a force should be sent to Spain to
harass Hasdrubal and to prevent the despatch of
reinforcements to Hannibal. But if the bold venture
of a general who knew how to face responsibility had
succeeded, as it well might, there would have been no
Hannibal and no Hannibal's army to reinforce. Any-
how the Roman Senate could very soon have raised
fresh legions for the service in Spain. As it was,
Publius landed, not with his army at Genoa, but
with a few attendants only at Pisa, and thence made
his way across the Apennines to Placentia. He found -
it as difficult to believe that the Hannibal whose
quarters he had so lately occupied on the Rhone was
already with his heterogeneous army safe across the
Alps, as Hannibal, in his turn, to believe that the
general who had been dallying at Marseilles, while he
crossed the Rhone unmolested, was already back in
Italy, and was nearing the Po.

As for the Senate, the last message that had
reached them from Spain had told them of the taking
of Saguntum, and they had accordingly despatched
troops who were to stop Hannibal at the Ebro. The
news they now received was to the effect that Hanni-

SEMPRONIUS RECALLED FROM SICILY. 215

bal had crossed, not the Ebro only, but the Pyrenees,
the Rhone, and the Alps, and he might be expected
at any moment across the Po. They now awoke —
they could not help awaking — to the character of the
war. Orders were sent to Sempronius to return at
once from Sicily for the protection of Italy. It must
have been a bitter disappointment to him. In the
southern seas the war had opened prosperously
enough for Rome. The old alliance with Hiero of
Syracuse had been renewed ; an attempt of the Car-
thaginian fleet on Lilybaeum, their last stronghold in
the first Punic War, had been foiled, and the fleet
defeated ; Sempronius himself had visited Malta, that
ancient settlement of the Phoenician race, and had
taken it for ever from Carthage ; and he was now about
to organize a descent on Africa itself, when the order
came to return. He obeyed with a heavy heart, and
sending his troops some by land and some by sea,
bade them rejoin him at Ariminum, an important
town on the Adriatic, situated just where the great
Flaminian road ends and the plain of the Po begins.^
But meanwhile Scipio and Hannibal had come
into collision, and the first Roman blood in the great
duel had been shed. The Carthaginian troops, it
would seem, did not recover their spirits after their
descent from the Alps as soon as the restless energy
of their leader required ; but Hannibal, allowing,
as it is reported, his Gallic prisoners to secure
their liberty by fighting in single combat in presence
of his men, bade the latter observe how brave souls
always preferred victory or death to a life of dis-

* Polyb. iii. 61. S- II ; Livy, xxi. 49-52.

2i6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

•

honour.^ In fact, the third alternative was no longer
open to his army, for retreat was out of the question.
The example of the Gauls did its work, and Hanni-
bal's words drove the lesson home. From the valley
of the Dora Baltea he advanced towards the Po ; but
turning aside westward to chastise the Taurini, he
gave Scipio time to cross that river near Placentia,
and to throw a bridge over the Ticinus, a stream
which, issuing from the Lake Verbanus (Maggiore),
flows southwards into the Po near Pavia. Not far
from this stream the armies, or rather a part of them,
met in battle. Both generals had led out their cavalry
in person to make a reconnaissance in force. Scipio,
to compensate, as he hoped, for his inferiority in that
arm, had also taken some light infantry with him ; but
these proved one of the causes of his defeat. Fearing
to be trampled under foot by the cavalry, they
retired behind their supports. The Gallic horse, who
formed his centre, gallantly withstood the charge of
the bridled Spanish cavalry of Hannibal. But the
bridleless Numidian cavalry, on which he most relied,
and which he had placed upon his wings, outflank-
ing the enemy, and riding round towards their rear,
first fell on the retreating infantry, and dealt them the
very death which they had tried to avoid ; then charg-
ing in their peculiar fashion, sometimes in twos and
threes, sometimes in a compact mass, they fell on the
Roman centre. This decided the conflict. Scipio
received a dangerous wound, and was only, as it is
said, rescued by his son, a youth of seventeen, who
risked his own to save his father's life, and lived to

* Polyb. iii. 62 ; Livy, xxi. 42,

BATTLE OF THE TIC IN US, 217

conquer Hannibal at Zama. to finish the war, and to
win the proud name of Africanus.^

The retreat of the Romans, though a hasty retreat,
was not a rout ; but it was ominous of what was to fol-
low. It proved the superiority of the Numidian cavalry
to any which the Romans could bring against them ;
and, seeing that the plains of Lombardy would always
give them the advantage, Scipio determined to place
the Po between himself and the enemy. He crossed
in safety ; but a party of 600 men, who were left be-
hind to cover the retreat and to cut down the bridge,
fell into Hannibal's hands. Unable to cross the river
there, Hannibal marched up its right bank till he found
a convenient place. He there threw a bridge of boats
across, and then marching down on the left side of the
Po crossed, as it would seem, the Trebia, and pitched
his camp six miles to the south of Placentia, under the
strong walls of which Scipio's army lay entrenched.^

The whole country to the north of the Po, with
the exception of the recently planted colony of Cre-
mona, was now lost to the Romans. Already, before
the battle of the Ticinus, the Ligurians and the Gallic
tribes along the upper Po had joined Hannibal ; and
now embassies flowed in from almost all the remaining
tribes of Cisalpine Gaul, offering their alliance. The
Boii, frightened at the planting of Mutina in their
midst, had already, in the spring of the year, taken
up arms against the Romans ; and it was well for
Rome that they had done so ; otherwise Hannibal
might have found no Roman army in the whole north
of Italy to oppose his progress. These same Boii

^ Polyb. iii. 65 ; Livy, xxi. 46. * Polyb. iii. 66 ; Livy, xxi. 47.

2i8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

now appeared in Hannibal's camp, bringing with them,
as a peace-offering, the Roman triumvirs who had
been sent to divide their lands. Hannibal received
the Gallic chieftains kindly, and bade them retain their
prisoners as security for themselves. Another band
of 2,200 Gauls, who were serving in the Roman army,
seeing which way the tide had turned, rose by night,
murdered their officers, and went over in a body to
Hannibal, who, knowing that they were now com-
mitted to his cause past all recall, sent them to their
respective states to fan the revolt.^

Scipio was now alarmed for his safety ; better, he
thought, the exposed hill-sides than the fortified camp
before Placentia, if only he could quit himself of
these Gauls, so formidable as enemies, so doubly for-
midable as allies. Accordingly he broke up his camp
by night, put, as it would seem, the Trebia between
himself and Hannibal, and, marching southward, took
possession of some high ground formed by a spur of
the Northern Apennines.^ It was a perilous operation,
for his line of retreat took him near to Hannibal, who
discovered the movement before it was completed ;
and had not the Numidian horsemen sent in pursuit
turned aside to plunder the deserted camp, it might
have fared ill with the whole Roman army. But the

» Polyb. iii. 67.

^ It is a moot question whether the battle of Trebia was fought on
the east or the west of the river, Niebuhr, Arnold, and Ihne are
in favour of the eastern ; Vaudincourt and Mommsen of the west-
em bank. The ancient authorities are not explicit ; but Polybius,
67. 9 ; 68. 4, &c., seems to point to the former supposition, and it is,
at all events, clear that Livy so understood him. In any case several
difficulties remain which admit only of partial explanation.

HANNIBAL SELECTS HIS GROUND. 219

hills to the west of the Trebia, on which Scipio's
camp now lay, protected him at all events from the
dreaded cavalry, and he could afford to wait patiently
for the arrival of Sempronius from Sicily. Why Hanni-
bal did not seize what seems to have been a golden
opportunity, and, thrusting himself between the two
armies, crush Sempronius as he crossed the level
country, so favourable for cavalry, between Ariminum
and the Trebia, must remain a mystery. But the
junction was effected without any opposition from
him, and he now found himself confronted by two
consular armies of 40,000 men. Scipio, impeded by
his wound, and apprehensive of the result, as one who
had already felt the weight of Hannibal's arm, was
for delay. Sempronius, on the contrary, was eager to
fight, for if Rome could not be defended by two con-
sular armies, it might well seem that she could not be
defended at all. A petty success won by his cavalry
over some squadrons of Numidian horse, who were
harrying the country, made him doubly confident.
Hannibal knew his man, and knew also that the con-
sular elections at Rome were not far off. If a battle
was not fought in the next few days, it would
be fought, not by Sempronius, but by his suc-
cessor. Accordingly, he laid all his plans for the
battle, which he knew he could at any moment
force on.*

In the plain of the Trebia, and on the eastern side
of it, where Hannibal still lay, was a watercourse
overgrown with bulrushes and brambles, and deep
enough with its steep banks to hide even cavalry. It

' Polyb. iii. 67, 68 ; Livy, xxi. 48 and 52.

220 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

was the very place for an ambuscade, for no one
would expect an ambush in a country which seemed
to the ordinary glance so level and unbroken. Han-
nibal saw his chance, and here, during the night, he
placed his brother Mago, with two thousand horse and
foot whom he had picked out for the purpose. Mago
was young and adventurous, and sprang at the task
assigned him. At dawn of day Hannibal sent his
Numidian horse across the river, with orders to ride
up to the enemy's camp and draw them out. Sem-
pronius was ready to be caught ; and the Numidian
horse falling back, as they had been instructed, across
the river, drew the Roman horse and foot, flushed
with their apparent success, after them.*

It was mid-winter. Heav)'' rain had fallen on the
previous night, and the swollen waters of the Trebia
rose to the breasts of the soldiers as they made their
way across. When they reached the opposite bank
they found themselves face to face with Hannibal's
army. Sleet was falling fast, and the wind blew icily
cold over the plains which lay between the eternal
snows of the Alps and those which had lately fallen
on the Apennines. In the hurry of the call to arms
the Romans had taken no breakfast ; and now faint
with hunger and numbed with the cold, they stood on
the river's bank with the day's work still all before
them. Hannibal, on the contrary, had ordered his
men to take their breakfasts by their firesides, and
then, buckling on their armour and saddling their
horses, to remain in the shelter of their tents till the
signal should be given. Hastily throwing forward his

* Polyb. iii. 71 ; Livy, xxi. 54.

j^futtjuj uoiu'tBmf.fjufj

<

J lU CO

BATTLE OF THE TREBIA, 221

light-armed troops and sharpshooters, to occupy the
attention of the enemy, he now drew up his main
line of battle immediately behind them ; his Gallic,
Spanish, and African troops in the centre, and his
cavalry and elephants on the wings. The light-armed
troops, having played with the Romans for a time, fell
back between the intervals of the maniples behind,
and the 4,000 Roman cavalry, finding themselves sud-
denly exposed to the attacks of more than double
their number, broke and fled, leaving the dreaded
Numidians to attack the infantry on their now
unprotected flanks. Many of the Roman infantry
stood their ground nobly, and for a short time kept
the conflict doubtful ; but then Mago, starting up from
his ambuscade, fell upon their rear. Surrounded as
they were on every side, one body of 10,000 men yet
fought their way, with the courage of despair, through
the Carthaginian ranks in front, and managed by a cir-
cuitous route to make their way to Placentia ; but the
rout of the remainder was complete. In vain they
tried to reach the river which they had crossed so im-
prudently in the morning, for they were ridden down
as they fled by the Numidian cavalry, who seemed to
be everywhere amongst them, or were trampled to
death by the elephants. A mere remnant escaped
across the river, and were saved from further pursuit
by the violence of the storm.^

Well might Hannibal rejoice at the victory which he
had won. He had beaten two Roman armies ; the diffi-
culties and the dangers and the disasters of his march
from Spain had been crowned by a triumphant success;

* Polyb. iii. 72-74 ; Livy, xxi. 74-77.

222 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

and it was doubtful whether any force remained
to bar his march upon Rome. In vain did Sempro-
nius try to disguise the magnitude of the disaster
which had overtaken him. He had fought a battle, so
he sent word to Rome, and it was only the storm which
had prevented him from winning a decisive victory.
How came it then, people asked — and well they might
ask — that Hannibal was in possession of the field of
battle, that the Gauls had joined him to a man, that
the Roman camp had been broken up, and that the
Roman armies — all that remained of them — were
cowering in the fortified camp before Placentia or
behind the walls of Cremona ; while Hannibal's cavalry
were scouring the fair plains of Lombardy } The truth
was too clear ; but the spirit of the Roman Senate
showed no signs of breaking. They prepared even
now to take the offensive. Armaments were despatched
to the remotest corners of their dominions, to Taren-
tum, for instance, to Sicily and to Sardinia ; a new
navy was fitted out, the consular, elections held, and
four more legions levied ; ' for,' says Polybius empha-
tically, 'the Romans are never so terrible as when
real terrors gird them in on every side.' ^

Hannibal with difficulty restrained his desire to
reap at once the fruits of his victory. He failed,
indeed, in an attempt to take by surprise Emporium,
a position which, commanding as it did the commerce
of the lower Po, supplied the Roman colonies of Cre-
mona and Placentia with the necessaries of life, almost
beneath his eyes. But he was more successful in an
attack upon Victumviae, a town on the frontiers of

» Polyb. iii. 75. 8.

HANNIBAL CROSSES THE APENNINES. 223

Liguria,^ and the defeated consuls took advantage of
his temporary absence to fall back from Placehtia on
Ariminum, thus abandoning to his tender mercies the
whole of the plain to the south of the Po,

At the first approach of spring, Hannibal attempted
to cross the Apennines ; but a storm more terrible even
than those of the Alps drove him back to his winter
quarters.^ The Gauls, disappointed in their hopes of
immediate plunder, had already begun to plot against
him ; and whether, as the Romans said, to provide for
his own safety, or, as is much more likely, to be able
to observe what was going on amidst the more undis-
ciplined portion of his followers, himself unobserved the
while, he would, with Phoenician adroitness, often put
on a disguise and wear false hair.^ Well aware that if
he wished to win the day, policy must do for him more
even than his sword, he dismissed the Italians whom he
had taken prisoners to their homes, assuring them that
he came as their deliverer from the common oppressor.
The Roman citizens, on the other hand, he kept in
close confinement, giving them only what was neces-
sary to support life.^ At last the spring began in
earnest, and Hannibal made a second, and this time a
successful, attempt to cross the Apennines, which lay
immediately to the south of his position. Two routes
alone seem to have been deemed practicable by the
newly elected consuls for his advance into Central
Italy. The one was by the Central Apennines in the
direction of Faesulae ; the other along the coast of the
Adriatic. Cn. Servilius lay at Ariminum, prepared to

'Livy, xxi. 57. * Livy, xxi. 58.

* Polyb. iii. 78. I, 2 ; Livy, xxii. I. * Polyb. iii. 77. 3-7,

224 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

block the one against his passage ; Flaminius at Arre-
tium, in the heart of Etruria, to block the other. But
Hannibal did not confine himself to any authorised
routes, nor did he care to strike only when he could
do so by the recognised laws of war. His genius
could dispense with both. Accordingly he crossed
the Apennines where they approach the western coast
of Italy, near the head waters of the Macra, and
reached, without serious difficulty, the plains of the
Arno near Lucca.

The region which lies betveen Lucca and Faesulae
is intersected by lakes, and the melting of the snows
on the hills had then caused the Arno to overflow its
banks, making the whole one vast morass. How would
his army stand this renewal of horrors in the very
land of promise } Of the fidelity and courage of his
Libyan and Spanish veterans Hannibal was well as-
sured, but as regards the Gauls, his newly formed
allies, it was far otherwise. He placed them, there-
fore, in the middle of his line of march, that they
might be encouraged by the troops who led the van,
or be driven back to their duty, if they tried to
turn homeward, by Mago and his cavalry who were
to bring up the rear. For four days and three nights
the army went toiling on through the water or the
mud, unable to find a dry spot on which they could
either sit down or sleep. The only rest they got was
on such baggage as they could pile together, or on
the bodies of the beasts of burden which day by day
died in numbers. The Gauls driven forward by Mago's
cavalry, over ground which was all the more difficult
to pass from the trampling it had already undergone.

POSITION OF THE ROMAN ARMIES, 225

and unused to fatigue, stumbled amidst the deep mo-
rasses, and fell to rise no more. Disease attacked the
horses and carried away their hoofs. Hannibal him-
self, tortured with ophthalmia, rode on the one ele-
phant which had survived the last year's campaign,
and escaped only with the loss of an eye.^

At last the invading army reached the high ground
of Faesulae, and there Hannibal learned, one would
think with surprise, that the consuls were still at their
respective stations some fifty miles apart, and with
the Apennines between them. Servilius, it would
seem, was still expecting the attack of Hannibal on
his front at Ariminunj when the Carthaginians had
already crossed the mountains and had shown them-
selves in his rear at Faesulae. The other consul, Fla-
minius, was at Arretium, to the south of the central
chain of the Apennines, and, lying as he did between
Hannibal and the probable line of his advance on
Rome, was likely to bear the brunt of his assault.

Flaminius was a marked man in more ways than
one. Of a patrician family, he had long since incurred
the deadly hatred of the patricians by preferring the
interests of the citizens at large to those of his own
order ; a senator, he was hated by the Senate because
he had supported a law which forbade senators to
amass large sums by trading with merchant vessels.^
Sixteen years before, as tribune of the people, he had
carried, in spite of the interested opposition of the
aristocracy, a law for the division of the conquered
Gallic territory in Umbria amongst the poorer citi-
zens. In the year of his first consulship (B.C. 223) he

* Polybius, iii. 7, 9 ; Livy, xxii. 2. * Livy, xxi. 63.

Q

226 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

had crossed the Po — the first Roman general who had
ever done so — and had carried the war into the ter-
ritory of the Insubrian Gauls. The hostile Senate,
indeed, had even then marshalled against him a long
array of omens and portents, and had endeavoured to
recall him from the very field of battle. The letter of
recall was duly delivered to him ; but, like Amru,
when bent on adding Egypt to the vast dominions
of the successors of the Prophet, or like Nelson,
when bidden to retire at the battle of Copenhagen,
he declined to see what he felt had better remain
unseen. He left the letter unopened till the battle
was fought and won, and then told the Senate that
the gods themselves had pronounced in his favour
aiui had overruled their prodigies. Such a man the
Senate might fear as well as hate, and envy as well as
fear. But no efforts and no malice of theirs could
now blot out those splendid monuments of his recent
censorship, the Circus and the great military road
which, to this day, bear his name. And now, in the
year 217 — 3, year so big with the destinies of Rome —
the popular favour secured for him, in spite of all the
old opposition, a second consulship. If the wave of de-
struction which was breaking over Italy was to be
driven back at all, his, the people were determined,
should be the hand to do it.

The winter at Rome had passed amidst gloom and
doubt ; the augurs and the priests alone had a good
time of it, and their hands were full enough. The
general anxiety gave birth to portents, and was, in
its turn, increased by them. When Flaminius was
elected consul, the omens increased in number and in

DESPONDENCY AT ROME. 227

horror. In the vegetable market an infant six months
old shouted * Triumph ; ' in the cattle market an ox
rushed up the stairs of a house to the third story and
threw itself out of the window ; fiery ships were seen
in the heavens; and from all parts of Italy stories
of terrible appearances came dropping in, which lost
nothing as they passed from mouth to mouth.^ Once
previously the Senate had attempted to annul the
appointment of their enemy tp the mastership of the
horse, because a mouse had been heard to squeak
during the election ; and now, when the very atmo-
sphere seemed charged with portents, when showers of
stones were falling, bucklers gleaming in the heavens,
the statues of the god of war perspiring, and strange
and unheard-of creatures coming to the birth,^ it
needed no prophetic insight to foresee that the proper
obstacle would be forthcomini;- on the day of Fla-
minius's entry on his office, and that if religious
awe could avail aught, the consul elect would never
become consul in reality.

Impatient of such chicaneries, Flaminius took the
law into his own hands, and, making light of the
sacred rites which he would have to perform on his
entry into office, went off to the camp at Ariminum
before the Ides of March came. Legates were sent
to recall him, but he heeded them not. Evil omens,
so the Senate said, pursued him even now. When he
offered his first sacrifice as consul the victim escaped
from the altar and sprinkled the bystanders with its
blood. When he had fallen back to Arretium, and the
time came for him to break up his camp there, and

* Livy, xxi. 62; Zonaras, viii. 20. * Livy, xxii. i.

Q2

228 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

to follow Hannibal in his march on Rome, as he was
in duty bound to do, even then the malice of the
Senate, or the folly of the annalists, represents the
gods as still taking part against him. It was clear
that the man whom the gods intended to destroy they
first drove mad. Flaminius ordered the standard-
bearer to advance ; but the standard, it was said, stuck
fast in the ground. He mounted his horse, and it
straightway threw him.* The annalists forgot, or they
did not know, that the greater the terrors which the
science of the augurs put in his way, the greater was
the credit due to him for despising them when duty
called. It is difficult to say how far this army of
angry portents may have paralysed the Roman
legionaries when they found themselves surrounded
in the defiles of Lake Trasimene. It is not difficult to
see that, if it did so, it was the aristocracy, and not
the legionaries, who were to blame ; for it was the
aristocracy who, for their own selfish ends, had long
been working on popular superstition to crush the
true friend of the people.

Hannibal had advanced from Faesulae, laying
waste with fire and sword the rich plains of Etruria.
The plunder, and the slaughter, and the smoke of
burning homesteads, with which he attempted to
draw the consul from the shelter of his camp to risk a
battle, might have roused a man who was less hot-
headed than his enemies represent Flaminius to have
been. But it was not till Hannibal had marched
leisurely by his camp, and went devastating on to-
wards Rome, that Flaminius left his position ?jnd

* Livy, xxii, 3.

FLAM INI us FOLLOWS HANNIBAL. 229

•
followed him. It was not, as Polybius imagined, mor-
tified pride at the fancied slight which Hannibal had
shown him ; ^ still less was it, as the annalists tell us,
and as the circle of the Scipios perhaps believed,^
the selfish desire to win the credit of a victory, before
his colleague could come up, which made Flami-
nius follow so closely on Hannibal's steps. On the
contrary, he had taken care to inform his colleague
at Ariminum of Hannibal's appearance at Faesulae
as soon as he had learned it • himself It was surely
now his simple duty to delay, by any means in his
power, what seemed to be the victorious march
of the Carthaginians on the unprotected capital.
Hannibal knew better than the detractors of Flaminius
what Flaminius was bound to do. He knew that he
could do nothing else but follow him closely, and he
laid his plans and chose his ground with his own con-
summate skill. He had violated all the rules of war
by leaving a hostile force of 60,000 men in his rear and
upon his line of communications. It remained for him
now to justify his temerity by success, and the greatest
sticklers for the rules of war will admit that he did it
with a vengeance.

We owe to Livy an admirable description, evi-
dently drawn from personal observation, of the posi-
tion selected by Hannibal, as well as a vivid account
of the great battle of which it was the scene.^ The
account given by Polybius, on the contrary, would
seem, contrary to his almost invariable practice, to be
at second hand. It is deficient in clearness, and is
difficult to reconcile even with the salient physical

* Polybius, iii. 81, 82. * Zonaras, viii. 23. * Livy, xxii, 4-6

230 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

features of the spot.^ The student of the Punic Wars
is so often compelled, in this part of his work, to com-
pare the Greek and Roman historians together to the
disadvantage of the Roman — to contrast, for instance,
the conscientious truthfulness and rigid impartiality
of the one with the brilliant exaggerations and unfair
reticences of the other — that it is well to call special
attention to a part of the history wherein the graphic
and lifelike narrative of Livy and the beauty of his
style — and it is often incomparably beautiful— are in
nowise inconsistent with the closest adherence to the
actual facts.

Hannibal had reached the shores of Lake Trasi-
mene. Near its northern margin ran the high road
from Cortona to Perusia, and above the road rose a
line of undulating hills which at two points, the one
near the tower now called Borghetto, and the other
near the small town of Passignano, approach the
lake so closely as to cut off what lies between them
from the outer world. Between these two points the
hills retreat from the lake in the form of a semicircle,
leaving between themselves and it a plain which seems
broad by contrast to its narrow entrance and outlet.^
Along these retreating hills Hannibal placed the main
part of his army, and the plain which they enfold was
the scene of the terrible catastrophe which followed.
On the spur near Passignano and the hills behind it
he stationed, in a conspicuous position, his Gallic
cavalry and his veteran Libyans and Spaniards.

• Polybius, iii. 83.

2 See the description of the battle-ground given by Sir John Cam
Hobhouse in his * Notes and Illustrations to Childe Harold,' Canto iv.
stanza 63.

BATTLE OF THE TRASIMENE LAKE, 231

Near Borghetto, and on either side of the road which
descends into the plain, but carefully concealed from
those who might pass along it by some broken ground,
were his Gallic infantry and his Numidian cavalry.
On the hills to the north of the plain, or rather behind
their crests, were placed the light-armed troops and
the Balearic slingers. Flaminius reached the hills
which shut in the lake late in the evening, too late, it
would seem, to attempt to pass them then ; but next
morniiig, before it was broad daylight, and without
sending scouts forward to see that the further end of
the pass was clear, he continued the pursuit.

It was a fatal mistake. In heavy marching order,
and without a thought of danger, the Roman army
entered the valley of death and moved along the road
that skirted the margin of the lake. A thick curtain
of mist hung over the lowlands which the army was
crossing, and hid from view the base of the adjoining
hills, while their tops were catching the first rays of
the rising sun. With grim delight, and in a fever of
expectation, must the soldiers of Hannibal, as they
saw above the mist the whole crest of the hills, and
each glen and hollow which lay between their folds,
crowded with their brothers in arms, have listened
to the tramp of the 30,000 men whom they could
hear but could not see, as they passed along a
few hundred yards below, each step making the de-
struction of the whole more sure. As soon as the
rear of the Roman army had got well within the
passage, Hannibal gave the signal. The Gauls and
Numidian cavalry hastened down and closed up the
entrance, while the passage out was already blocked

232 CARTHAGE AAD THE CARTHAGIAIANS.

by the Gallic cavalry and the veterans. And now
from all sides, from above and from below, from the
front and from the rear, the battle-cry arose, and the
enemy were upon the Romans. It was a carnage, and
a carnage only. There was no time or space to form
in order of battle ; orders could neither be given nor
heard ; the men had hardly time to adjust their
armour or to draw their swords. The majority stood
where they were, and were cut down. Six thousand
who led the van fought their way, sword in hand, in a
compact mass, through the troops that blocked the
outlet, and reached a hillock, where they halted. The
mists still hung heavy on the ground below, and half
ignorant of what was going on behind them, they
waited in dread suspense, unable to help their com-
rades, yet unable also to tear themselves away from
the scene of the conflict. It was their turn now to
hear and not to see. At last, as the sun rose higher
in the heavens, the mist lifted and revealed the extent
of the butchery below. For three hours the slaughter
had gone on, and IS,0(X> Roman corpses covered the
ground or were floating on the waters. Some in their
terror had tried to swim across the lake, but were
drowned by their heavy armour; others who had
waded into the water might be seen standing in it up
to their necks, and begging for their lives, till the
cavalry rode in and struck off* their heads. Of the con-
quering army barely i ,5(X> had fallen, and these were
chiefly Gauls, the troops whom Hannibal could best
afford to lose.^

The Roman army was annihilated. To make the

' Polybius, iii. 84 ; Livy, xxii. 4-6.

DEATH OF FLAMIMUS. 233

disaster more complete, the six thousand infantry who
had so gallantly fought their way out of the pass were
overtaken on the following day by Maherbal and
forced to surrender ; ^ while four thousand cavalry, who
had been sent forward by Servilius as his forerunners
to co-operate with Flaminius,. fell also into Hannibal's
hands.^ Flaminius himself, after in vain trying to
play the general's part amidst the blind panic and con-
fusion, had died a soldier's death, fighting bravely. A
Gallic Insubrian recognising him, cried aloud, * Yonder
is the consul who has slain our legions and ravaged
our territory,' and rushing at him, ran him through
with his spear.^ In vain did Hannibal search for his
body to give him the honourable funeral which he
never refused to a worthy foe. Flaminius may not
have been a great general, he may have been im-
petuous and headstrong, and he certainly made on^
fatal mistake ; but amidst the calumnies heaped on
him by the Senate, and the gloom which always gathers
round defeat, we can safely say that he was the wor-
thiest and least self-seeking Roman of his time.'*

* Polyb. iii. 84, 14.

* Polyb. iii. 86, 1-5 ; Livy, xxii. 8. ' Livy, xxii. 6.

* See an eloquent passage in Arnold, iii. p. I lO.

240 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

to him ever since as a term of honour, greater even
than his other name of * Greatest ' — became for the
time a term of the bitterest reproach. The lingerer
was called a do-nothing, and his caution was put down
to cowardice, or even to treachery. * Hannibal's
lackey,* so the soldiers, aptly enough from their point
of view, nicknamed their general, would go anywhere if
his master gave him the lead ; without it he would go
nowhere. But the old Dictator was as proof against
the murmurings of his soldiers, and the mutinous
speeches of his own master of the horse, Minucius, as
he was against all the devices of Hannibal. At last,
wearied out by his delay, Hannibal determined that
Fabius, if he would not tire himself by hard fighting,
should at least do so by hard marching ; and leaving
Apulia behind, where he had already taken the
strongly fortified town of Venusia, he marched into
Samnium, the most inaccessible and mountainous
part of Italy, ravaged the territory of Beneventum,
in its very centre, took Telesia by assault, and then
passed straight on out of Samnium into Campania.^

The plains of Campania were certainly the most
fertile and beautiful plains in ancient Italy ; the
Italians thought them the most beautiful and fertile
ill the world. * Campania the blessed, where all
human delights meet and vie with each other/ says
Pliny of it^ On the west a succession of beautiful
harbours and noble cities received the wealth of other
countries, and gave them in exchange the oil, and
the corn, and the wine of its own rich interior. Here

* Polybius, iii. 90 ; Livy, xxii. 3.

* Pliny, iii. 5. 9, * Felix ilia Campania, certamen humanae voluptatis. '

CONTINUED INACTION OF FABIUS, 241

— — ■ — — ■

was Naples, with its matchless bay, * Cumae, the
earliest of the Greek colonies in Italy, Nola, and
Puteoli, Baiae and Nuceria. Here was Capua, the
city, if second, yet second only, of Italian cities, to
Rome. Here were those Phlegraean plains for the
possession of which, as the legend, not unreasonably,
said, the gods themselves, the deities of wine and
corn, had contended, and from the gently sloping
hills came the far-famed olives of Venafrum, and the
choicest vintages of the ancient world, the Surrentine,
and the Massic, the Formian, and the Falemian. One
of two things was evident. In defence of all this wealth
and beauty, either Fabius must at length risk a battle,
or it would be clear to all Italians that the whole of
Italy was at Hannibal's mercy, and its towns would^
if from the instinct of self-preservation alone, at
length join the conquering side.

Fabius had followed Hannibal more quickly than
was his wont, and his troops were in high spirits, for
they thought that their general was at length in
earnest and would strike a blow rather than leave
Campania to fall into the enemy's hands. But they
were disappointed. They reached the ridge of the
Caliculan hills which overlooked the plain, and then
they sat down to enjoy, or to endure, as best they
could, the now well-known sight of devastated fields
and burning homesteads.^ Their discontent broke out
with twofold force, and it was evident from the recep-
tion which they gave to a mutinous speech of Minucius,
that the soldiers thought the master of the horse would
make a better commander than the Dictator;^ an

* Polyb. iii. 92. 4-7. * Livy> xxii. 14, 15.

R

242 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

opinion in which it was also evident that the master
of the horse himself fully coincided. Aware that the
discontent of the army had spread to Rome, and even
to the aristocracy whose representative he was, Fabius
yel: held on steadfastly to his purpose. He knew
that Northern Campania, with all its riches, could
not support the Carthaginian army through the winter,
and that Hannibal must attempt to retreat by the
pass through which he had advanced. He could not
cross the Vulturnus to the south of the Falernian
plain which he had been devastating, for the stream
was deep and rapid, and the one bridge across it was
protected by the Roman colony and garrison of
Casilinum. Neither could he march northward by
the Appian or Latin roads into Latium, with much
hope of success, for these roads bristled with faithful
Latin colonies, Cales and Casinum, Fregellae and
Terracina, which would threaten his front, while
the Dictator hung upon his rear. Fabius therefore
flattered himself that he had caught his enemy as in
a trap, and placing 4,000 men at the head of the pass
by which Hannibal must needs retreat, drew up his
main army on the hills near its entrance.

Laden with booty, the spoils of Campania, Han-
nibal halted just below him, while Fabius made all his
dispositions to repel the attempt to force a passage
which would, doubtless, be made on the following day.
But Hannibal had no intention of fighting at a dis-
advantage, or indeed of forcing the pass at all. He in-
tended to march quietly through it. Accordingly, he
selected from the vast herds of oxen which he was
driving towards his winter quarters, two thousand of the
strongest, and bidding his sutlers cut as many fag-

FABIUS FAILS TO ENTRAP HANNIBAL. 243

gots of dry brushwood, and fasten them to their horns,
he ordered that when the night was well advanced the
faggots should be kindled and the oxen, with their
horns ablaze, be driven up the hills which hung over
the pass. Maddened with fear and pain, the affrighted
beasts ran wildly up the steep sides of the valley, and
Fabius himself, as well as the 4,000 men upon the
col, imagined that Hannibal was escaping that way
over the hills. But, true to his character, the Dictator
would not venture out of his camp till he could see
clearly what lay before him ; while the 4,000 guards
who did move hastily along the ridge to the points
which seemed threatened, when they met the flaming
oxen and a few light-armed troops who accompanied
them, came to a halt and waited for daylight. Mean-
time Hannibal led his army, which had been refreshed
by half a night's sleep, quietly up the unguarded pass,
and reached Allifae in safety.^ Fabius found himself
outwitted, and it was natural in the keenness of their
vexation, that his men should accuse him of having
purposely allowed Hannibal to escape ; an accusation
which shortly afterwards seemed triumphantly brought
home to him, when the crafty Phoenician took occa-
sion to spare his private property, while he wasted all
around with fire and sword.^

Still Fabius clung steadfastly to his purpose. He
followed Hannibal northwards to the Peligni, and
when his enemy turned southwards again, towards
his proposed winter quarters in Apulia, and he him-

* Polyb. iii. 93, 94 ; Livy, xxii. 16, 17.

* Livy, xxii. 23 ; cf. ii. 29. Thucyd. ii. 13. Tac. Hist, v. 23.
* Not& arte ducum.*

R2

244 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

self was called off to Rome to perform some sa-
crifices incident to his office, he straitly charged
Minucius to follow his policy, and on no account to
risk a battle in his absence. He could hardly have
expected his advice to be followed. Hannibal had
just seized Geronium, a town in the extreme north-
west of Apulia, which contained a considerable supply
of stores, and he had encamped under its walls, in*
tending to pass the winter there. It was just the posi-
tion he wanted. Two parts of his force he sent out
each day to forage amidst the rich farms in the neigh-
bourhood, while the third remained in camp to guard
it from any sudden attack.*

Such a state of things was calculated to encourage
Minucius to strike a blow. Accordingly, as soon as
Fabius had turned his back, he moved his camp lower
down the hills in the direction of the enemy. Han-
nibal, in his turn, advanced two miles and occupied a
hill rising out of the plain ; here he would be better
able to protect his foragers, and to provoke the enemy
to a conflict at his own time. He had long since
formed his estimate of Minucius, and when he threw
forward a portion of his forces to a hill still nearer to
the enemy, a sharp skirmish took place, which ended
in the Romans occupying the disputed position. En-
couraged by this first success, Minucius made a de-
scent in force upon Hannibal's foragers, and cut many
of them to pieces. Hannibal found himself for the
first time in his life in the midst of the enemy, yet
unable to take the field. He was, so at least his
enemies thought, penned within his own camp, and on

* Polybius, iii. lOO.

MINUCIUS MADE CO-DICTATOR. 245

the morrow he made a hasty retreat to his old posi-
tion at Geronium, fearing lest Minucius, whose quali-
ties he had apparently underrated, should take it
by a coup de main, and thus the provisions he had so
laboriously got together should fall into the enemy's
hands.^

It is not to be wondered at, that when the news of
this success reached Rome the delight was great, and
out of all proportion to its immediate cause. It was
the first success which the Roman arms had won in the
war, and it seemed to indicate that the tide had at
length begun to turn. The fame of Minucius was in
everybody's mouth, and as he rose in the popular
estimation, so did the dictator fall. One stroke of
good luck had turned the heads of the Romans more
completely than had all their previous misfortunes,
and they took one of the most incredibly foolish steps
recorded in their history. They did not try to depose
Fabius from the command for which they deemed him
unfitted, but they raised Minucius to an equal com-
mand with him.^ For the first time in Roman history
were to be seen two co-dictators, differing alike in
temperament and in policy, and the one raised to
an equality with the other simply because of the dif-
ference ! It was a contradiction in terms, only equalled
in absurdity in more modern history by the spectacle
of two rival Popes, each anathematising the other, yet
each infallible. It has been said by a high military
authority that one bad general is better than two good
ones ; and it was apparent to those who had eyes to

* Polyb. iii. loi, 102 ; Livy, xxii. 24.

* Polyb. iii. 103 ; Livy, xxii. 26.

246 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

see that the sword of Hannibal would soon arbitrate
between such conflicting claims.

Fabius returned to the army as convinced as ever
of the soundness of his policy, and prepared to press
upon his colleague by his personal influence what he
could no longer enforce upon him by superior power.
Seeing that Minucius was bent on fighting, he pro-
posed either that they should take the command of
the whole army on alternate days, or that each should
have the continuous and unfettered control over his
own half of it. Minucius, possibly with a slight dis-
trust of himself, under the new responsibilities of com-
mand, chose the latter alternative, and Fabius, doubt-
less thinking it better to risk the safety of two than
of four legions on a single cast, was of the same mind.
Hannibal, duly informed by his prisoners or his spies
of the arrangement which had been made, directed his
attention exclusively to Minucius.^ Near the camp
of the new dictator was a hill with' ground below it
which presented the appearance of a general level,
bare of trees ; but in it, as in the level ground near
the Trebia, Hannibal's experienced eye had dis-
covered hollows and inequalities which might hide
a considerable force. Here by night he concealed
some 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and at dawn of day
he sent a small body of active troops to seize the hill
in full view of the Romans. Minucius took the bait.
In the engagement which ensued the ambuscade did
its duty well ; and it would have fared ill with the
army of the new dictator, had not Fabius, observing
from his own camp, at the distance of a mile, what

* Polyb. iii. 104. 2 ; Livy, xxii. 27.

SERVICES OF FABIUS TO ROME, 247

was going on, come up at the right moment and pre-
vented its retreat from being turned into a total rout.
Minucius, it is said, frankly acknowledged his error,
joined his camp to that of the old dictator, and de-
scended gracefully once more into his proper post of
master of the horse, ^

The tables were now completely turned. Fabius
was the hero alike of the camp and of the city, and
Hannibal himself remarked — so at least the Romans
fondly believed — that the cloud, which had so long
been hanging on the mountain sides, had at last burst
in a tempest of wind and rain. But the six months of
the dictator's short-lived term of office were drawing
to a close, and it remained to be seen whether his
mantle would descend on those who were to succeed
him. He had done great things in those six months.
If he had not, as his admirers said, altogether saved
Rome by his delay j'^ he had at least given her a brief
breathing space. He had trained raw levies to look
the warriors of Hannibal in the face — a feat to which
they were quite unequal on the morrow of the Trasi-
mene ; and by allowing Hannibal to devastate at his
pleasure the Apulian and Campanian plains, he had
unintentionally elicited the most conclusive proof of
the hopelessness of Hannibal's enterprise. For even
now no Italian city had revolted ; the serried ranks
of the Italian Confederation remained unbroken, and

• Polyb. iii. 104, 105 ; Livy, xxii. 28-30,

2 Cf. Ennius. * Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.' See
Ovid, Fasti^ ii. 241, 242 :

' Scilicet ut posses olim tu, Maxime, nasci,
Cui res cunctando restituenda foret.'

248 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

it was clear to the keen-sighted Phoenician that he
was still as far as ever from the goal of his hopes.
The services, therefore, rendered by the Cunctator to
Rome were very real services, even if they were not
quite what his admirers represented them ; to have
escaped from Hannibal without a crushing defeat was
in those times, as Livy truly remarks, a victory in
itself.

ENERGY OF THE ROMANS. 249

CHAPTER XIII.

BATTLE OF CANNiE. CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL.

(B.C. 216.)

Energy and spirit of the Romans — The rival armies face each other at
Cannae — Nature of the ground — The double command of iEmilius
Paullus and Varro — Anxiety at Rome — Dispositions of Hannibal
for the battle — Battle of Cannse — Number of the slain — Panic at
Rome — Measures of the Senate — Course of the war — Was Hanni-
bal right or wrong in not advancing on Rome now ? — Greatness of
Hannibal and of Rome — Character and genius of Hannibal — his
ascending series of successes — his influence over men — Sources
of our knowledge of him — Charges against him — Roman feeling to-
wards him — Change in character of war after Cannse — Polybius
and Silenus.

The Roman Senate during the winter which followed
gave new and striking proofs of their confidence in
their own future by sending legates to expostulate '
with the Ligurians for having taken the part of Han-
nibal, and to watch the ever-fickle Gauls. Nor was
their horizon bounded by the limits of Italy. With
the truest wisdom they despatched reinforcements to
their army in Spain ; they demanded the arrears of
tribute from Illyria, and they sent even to Philip, King
of Macedon, ordering him to surrender the intriguer
Demetrius of Pharos, who had taken refuge in his
court. The help which was offered them by the Greek

250 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

cities of Italy they declined with thanks, for it would
have looked like weakness to accept it ; but they re-
ceived the freewill contributions of Hiero, their old
ally, and placed the golden statue of Victory, which he
sent them, with due solemnity in the Capitol. It was
the omen and not the gold which they valued.^ But
party spirit still ran high in the city. In the election
for the consulship which had just taken place, other
qualifications had been thought of than those which
were essential in this supreme hour ; perhaps for the
simple reason that the Romans did not yet realise
that it might be supreme. L. iEmilius Paullus, who
had distinguished himself in the Illyrian war, was the
successful candidate on the patrician side, but he
received as his colleague P. Terentius Varro, the
champion of the plebeians, a man who, if the pa-
trician annalists can be believed, was not only of
humble origin, the son of a butcher, but had himself
worked in his father's business, and was recommended
to the suffrages of the people by nothing but a bully-
ing manner and a vulgar impudence.^ Varro does not
seem, it is true, to have been more of a military
genius than Flaminius, or Sempronius, or Fabius ;
but that most of the accusations laid to his charge
are unjust is proved by the fact that he had held high
offices before, that he was elected now in what no
one could refuse to recognise as a time of danger, and
that he was employed in the public service even after
the disastrous name of Cannae had been indissolubly
connected with his own.

The spring found the hostile armies still facing

* Polybius, iii. io6 ; Livy, xxiii. 33 and 37.

* Cf. Livy, xxii. 25, 34, 39 ; Zonaras, ix. i.

ARMIES FACE EACH OTHER AT CANN^, 251

each other near Geronium ; but Hannibars provisions
were nearly exhausted. Not enough for ten days
remained, and the wasted country could yield no more.
He began to look out for another Roman magazine
which he might convert to his own use ; nor had he
far to go. The Roman supplies and munitions of
war for Apulia were collected in large quantities at
Cannae, a town to the south of the Aufidus, about
halfway between Canusium and the sea. With strange
short-sightedness the Roman generals of the preceding
year had neglected to garrison it strongly ; and while
the consuls of the new year were levying fresh legions
at Rome, Hannibal, by one of his rapid marches, seized
and appropriated it to his own use, as he had seized and
appropriated Geronium before it.^ When at length
iEmilius and Varro assumed the command of the army,
they did so under definite instructions from the autho-
rities at home to force on a battle.^ The Fabian method,
they thought, had been tried long enough ; it had done
all that it could do ; and it was apparent that the Italian
allies could not stand much longer the strain to which
it had exposed them. Every precaution was taken, so
far as numbers went, to ensure a victory. A Roman
army ordinarily consisted of but two legions, each con-
taining 4,200 infantry and 200 cavalry. The army
which was now raised consisted, not of two, but of eight
legions, and each legion contained S,ooo infantry and
300 cavalry. The Romans, therefore, could hardly now
be accused of under-estimating, so far as mere numbers
went, the gravity of the occasion.^ The consuls were
to act together, and those of the previous year were

» Polyb. iii. 106. 1-5. « Polyb. iii. 107. 6, 7.

• Polyb. iii. 107. 9-15 ; Livy, xxii, 36.

252 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

retained as proconsuls to assist in handling the vast
host. Never before had the Romans sent so large an
army, at one time and place, into the field, and the
contingent furnished by the allies was, according to
precedent, equal to that of the Romans. The grand
total, therefore, of the force on which the safety of
Rome might seem to depend consisted of over 80,000
men. They found Hannibal encamped near Cannae,
on the south side of the Aufidus, and they selected a
spot for their own camp on the same side of the river,
but six miles higher up its course.

The Aufidus, alone of the eastward flowing streams
of Italy, draws its head waters from the west of the huge
backbone of mountains which traverses the peninsula,
and, forcing its way through them, conveys to the Adri-
atic what would seem more naturally to have belonged
to the Tyrrhenian sea. The epithets of ' boisterous,'
* far-resounding/ ' shaped like a bull,* so well known
to readers of Horace, and given by the poet to his
native stream, are doubtless, in part, the product of
the childish fancy which invests familiar objects with
attributes of awe and grandeur which do not properly
belong to them, and which maturer age, happily for
the poetry of life, is not altogether able to shake off ;
in part, they are justified by the fact that has just
been mentioned, and which at certain times of the
year might make the stream impetuous enough. But
it is clear from the series of manoeuvres which took
place before the two armies became locked in the
deadly combat now to be related, that, at this time
of year at least, the stream must have been fordable
even to within a few miles of its mouth.

EVILS OF A DOUBLE COMMAND. 253

The surrounding country was level and suitable
to the evolutions of cavalry, and without doubt had
for this reason been selected by Hannibal. Paullus,
seeing this, is said to have been anxious to postpone the
battle till he should have drawn Hannibal into ground
of his own choosing. The historians who have be-
praised TauUus for this forgot, in their eagerness to
throw all the blame for what happened afterwards on
the butcher's son, that the orders of the authorities to
fight a battle at once were stringent, and that it was
not likely that Hannibal would, by any artifices of
the Roman consuls, be drawn off from a position se-
lected by himself, well fortified and well supplied. It
was impossible for an army of 8o,0(X) men to linger
long in so exhausted a country without striking a
blow ; and to linger there, or to retreat without fight-
ing, would have been alike fatal to the Roman cause
in Apulia. The evils of a divided . command were
great enough, but they were not created by Varro,
They were even diminished, to a certain extent, in
this case by the arrangement that the consuls should
take the supreme command on alternate days ; and
when Varro, on his day, pushed his camp nearer to the
foe he was encouraged in his resolve to force on a battle
by a success which he won over some skirmishers and
light cavalry who had been sent to bar his progress.^
Minucius had met with a like first success near
Geronium, and Sempronius had done the same at the
Trebia. Was it not possible that like effects might
be produced by like causes, and that a deep-laid de-
sign of Hannibal might have had more to do with

» Polyb. iii. no. 4-7.

254 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

each than the prowess of the Romans ? But this did
not strike — so remarked the Patrician annalists, wise
after the event — the mind of Varro. The next day-
belonged to PauUus, and he signalised his command
by throwing a third of his army to the north side of
the Aufidus, and by forming a second camp there,
some miles nearer to the Carthaginians. By this step
he hoped at once to protect his own foraging parties
and to annoy those of the enemy. ^ Eager for the
conflict, Hannibal, two days afterwards, drew out his
forces in battle array on the south side of the river.
The offer was declined by the prudent PauUus ; and
Hannibal, to bring matters to a crisis, sent his Nu-
midians across the river with orders to cut off the
Romans, who were encamped on its northern side,
from all access to it.^ It was the middle of June ;
the country was parched and thirsty, and a dry wind,
the Vulturnus, which blows at that time of year,
raising clouds of dust, would make a scanty supply
of water an intolerable hardship. Even if he had
been disposed to postpone fighting, Varro could hardly
now have done so.

The delay of the last few days seemed irksome
enough to the rival armies ; but what must it have
seemed to the citizens at home ? News had reached
the city that the armies were facing each other, and
that everything was prepared for a decisive conflict.
They had ventured their all, or nearly their all, on
this one throw. The stake was laid down, and the
throw must be made, but it was hard to have so much
time to ask themselves what if they should lose }

* Polyb. iii. no. 8-10; Livy, xxii. 45. * Polyb. iii. 112. 3, 4,

DISPOSITIONS OF HANNIBAL, 255

Omens and portents seemed to fill the air, as before
the Trasimene Lake, and busy-tongued rumour passed
from mouth to mouth, sending the citizens in crowds
to the temples to seek from the gods by supplications
what they could no longer gain or lose by any exer-
tions of their own. It was the resource of the desti-
tute, and they knew it, but it helped them to kill the
period of suspense.^

Once more it was Varro's turn for the command,
and as the sun rose he began to transfer his army to
the northern side of the river, and, after joining the
contingent in the smaller camp there, drew the whole
out in battle array, facing the -south.* Nearly oppo-
site Cannae the Aufidus, whose general course is
north-east, takes a sharp bend to the south. After-
wards for some distance it runs east, and then, once
more, turning northward, reaches the line of its former
course. The loop or link thus formed Hannibal
marked out as the grave of the Roman army, the
grave of 50,000 men ; and into it, as a preparatory
step, he now threw his own small force, while Varro
was crossing the stream higher up. His infantry did
not number half that of the Romans ; but they were
many of them veterans, and all of them men on whom
he knew by experience that he could rely. His cavalry
were only slightly superior in numbers to the enemy,
but how vastly superior in every military quality the
result was to prove. In the centre of his Hne of
battle were the Spaniards clothed in white tunics
edged with purple, and armed with swords equally

» Polyb. iii. 112. 6-9.

* Polyb. UL 113. 2 ; Liyy, xxii. 46.

256 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

suited for thrusting and for striking. Next them were
the Gauls who, naked to the waist, and armed with
long swords, suited to their gigantic stature, seemed
as though they were the warriors of Brennus come to
life again with one more terrible than many Brennuses
to lead them. This part of his force Hannibal threw
forward in the form of a semicircle or a wedge,* while
on their flanks and some way to the rear he placed
the best part of his infantry, the heavy-armed Afri-
cans, eager doubtless many of them to flesh, for the
first time in Roman hearts, the Roman weapons
which they bore. Beyond these again and forming
the left wing of the whole army were the heavy Gallic
and African cavalry, 8,000 strong. On the right
wing he posted his light-armed Numidians, reduced
by the waste of life attending such campaigns as
Hannibal's to 2,000 men all told, but with spirit and
fidelity enough to their great leader to fight on to
their very last man and last horse. Hasdrubal led
the heavy cavalry on the left, and Maharbal the
Numidians on the right, while Hannibal, with his
brother Mago near him, stationed himself in the
centre to direct the general operations of the battle.
He had been obliged to leave ten thousand men
on the other side of the river to guard his camp
against surprise, and was able therefore to put only
thirty thousand men into line of battle ; thirty thou-
sand against the Roman eighty thousand ! The odds
were heavy indeed against him in point of numbers ;
but it must be remembered that his wings rested on
the sides of the loop which he had himself selected,

* Polyb. iii. 113. 8 ; Livy, xxii. 46.

iiB^

K Bcaie. /

' V

m£«UU<> 110.000

**»^

i

BATTLE OF CANNjE. 257

and could not be outflanked by the enemy. Varro,
whether because he distrusted his raw levies, or be-
cause he saw, when it was too late to remedy it, that
unless he massed his troops together, half of his whole
army would be outside the fray, increased the depth
of his maniples from ten to sixteen, hoping by sheer
weight to bear down all resistance and drive the Car-
thaginians into the river. He was, in fact, only pen-
ning his sheep more closely for the slaughter.

After the usual preliminary skirmish of the light-
armed troops, the 8,000 heavy cavalry on Hannibal's
left charged the 2400 Roman cavalry opposed to
them. These last were picked men, belonging, most
of them, to the best Roman families, men of Eque3-
trian and Senatorial rank. They withstood the charge
bravely for a time, and grappled horse to horse and
man to man with the barbarians. But they were
overpowered by numbers, and only a small remnant
escaped from the field.^ Unlike Rupert at Naseby,
Hasdrubal held his eager cavalry well in hand. He
forbade them to pursue those who were already
routed, and passing behind the whole Roman line fell
on the rear of the Italian cavalry, who were stationed
on the other wing, and who had hitherto been held in
check by the skilful evolutions of the mere handful of
Numidians. Those admirable horsemen had avoided
coming to close quarters, in which they must have
been crushed by numbers, but had managed to keep
their vastly more numerous enemy employed till
Hasdrubal came thundering on their rear. Attacked
now by the uninjured Numidians in front and by

* Polyb. iii. 115. I-4 ; Livy, xxii. 47.

S

258 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Hasdrubars cavalry, flushed with success, behind, the
Italian cavalry broke and fled. Hasdrubal, not yet
sated with victory, left the Numidians to render an
account of their flying foes, and turned his attention to
the Roman centre. Here, so far, matters had gone
well for the Romans ; but it was so far only. The
semicircle of Gauls and Spaniards, whom Hannibal
had pushed forward in his centre, had been gradually
forced back, or rather had fallen back in accordance
with his plan, first to a level with, and then right past,
the heavy Africans on their flanks. The convex line
of battle had thus become concave, and it seemed
that the whole would be driven headlong into the
river by the overwhelming masses of the Romans,
who, as they yielded, kept pressing on, or were them-
selves pressed on by those behind and at their flanks,
into every inch of ground left vacant for them.* But
just at the critical moment Hasdrubal fell upon their
rear, and the heavy Libyan infantry, who had hardly
yet taken part in the battle, wheeling inward at the
same time from right and left, attacked them on both
flanks.* Denser and denser grew the mass of terrified
Romans, pressed on all four sides at once. Huddled
together without room to draw, much less to wield,
their swords, they stood or struggled in helpless im-
becility, seeing their comrades on the circumference
of the fatal circle cut down, one after the other, and
doomed to wait in patience till their own turn should
come. The question was no longer whether, but
simply when, the stroke would fall on each. Few
Romans indeed within that fatal ring were destined

* Polyb. iiu 115. 5-12; Livy, xxii. 47. ' Polyb. iii. 116; Livy, xxii. 48.

NUMBER OF THE SLAIN. 259

to escape. As at the Trasimene, it was a simple
butchery ; but it was a butchery which required treble
the number of victims. The Romans were never
cowards, but those who stood near the centre of that
seething mass must needs have died, like cowards,
many times before their death. *The thicker the
hay,' said Alaric long afterwards, in an outburst of
brutality, 'the easier it is mown.' But not even
Alaric's imagination could have pictured such a
harvest of death as this of Cannae, and even the
muscles of his brawny Visigoths would have been
wearied out before they had slain, as the Cartha-
ginians did on this fatal day, a number of the enemy
which, man for man, vastly exceeded their own.

For eight hours the work of destruction went on,
and at the end 50,000 men lay dead upon the ground.^
iEmilius Paullus, the Illyrian hero, who, though
wounded by a sling early in the day, had clung to
his horse, heartening on his men, till he dropped
exhausted from his saddle ; the proconsul Servilius ;
the late high-spirited master of the horse Minucius ;
both quaestors, twenty-one military tribunes, sixty
senators, and an unknown number of knights were
among the slain. Nearly 20,000 Roman prisoners
were taken, whether on the field itself, in the pursuit,
or in the two camps which were among the prizes of
Hannibal's gigantic victory. Of the rest Varro, with
a few horsemen only, had the good or the ill fortune
to escape to Venusia ; and it was with difficulty that
after some days he managed to rally a few thousand

* Polybius, iii. 1 17. 4, puts the number of slain at 7o,cxx) ; Livy, xxii.
49, at 48,000 ; Appian, vii. 25, at 50,000.

S 2

26o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

stragglers or malingerers at Canusium — all that now
remained of the Roman army. Amidst all this
slaughter, the conqueror had lost only S,5CX) of his
infantry, and but 200 of that matchless cavalry to
whom the victory was mainly due.^ ' Send me
on with the cavalry,' said Maharbal to Hannibal, in
the exultation of the moment, 'do thou follow be-
hind, and in five days thou shalt sup in the Capitol.' ^
He might well think so at the time, for the worst
fears of the Romans, the highest hopes of Hannibal,
had been more than realised ; the double stake had
been played and had been lost, lost, it would seem then,
irretrievably.. So many knights lay dead that, as the
story goes, Mago, when sent some time afterwards by
Hannibal to Carthage with tidings of his victory,
emptied on the floor of the Senate House three
bushels of golden rings taken from Equestrian fin-
gers.^ It was a trophy of victory which the Cartha-
ginian aristocracy, who, as has been already pointed
out,* commemorated the number of their campaigns
by that of their rings, and who had, many of them,
joined the opposition to the noble Barcine gens, could
not fail to appreciate.

The news, which was necessarily slow in reaching
Carthage, reached Rome apace. It was, as the say-
ing is, * in the air ' even before the first courier with
his disastrous tidings appeared at the Appian gate,
and rumour, as was natural, went even beyond the
truth. It was believed that both consuls were dead,
and that no portion of the army had survived. Livy,

> Polyb. iii. 1 1 7. 6. ' Livy, xxii. 51.

• Livy, xxiii. 12. * See above, p. 36.

MEASURES OF THE SENATE. 261

the most graphic of historians or of romancers, fairly
shrinks from the attempt to picture the scene of hor-
ror which followed.^ Each flying messenger, as he
reached the walls, fancied himself, or was fancied by
the Romans, to be but the forerunner of the dread
Hannibal himself. He knew not, indeed, as he drew
near the city, whether the Numidian cavalry were not
even then before him, as their own messengers. A
panic-stricken multitude, thinking that all save their
lives was lost, made for the gates, and for a moment
it seemed likely that Hannibal when he came would
find Rome indeed, but no Roman citizens within her.
Any other sta'te must have succumbed to such a
blow ; ^ but now., as after the Trasimene, it was the
Senate, or what remained of it, who saved the city
from being abandoned by her own children. They
alone preserved their presence of mind ; and it was
the old ex-dictator, Fabius, who was, once more,
the soul of .their deliberations. By his advice the
gates were closed to prevent the exodus of the inha-
bitants. The citizens should not be saved, so he
willed it, unless the city was saved with them. Mes-
sengers were sent along the southern military roads
to see, as Livy pathetically expresses it, * if the gods,
touched by one pang of pity, had left aught remain-
ing to the Roman name,* and to bring the first tidings
of the expected advance of Hannibal.^ It was diffi-
cult for the Senate to deliberate at all ; for the cries
of thousands of women outside the Senate House, who
were bewailing their absent husbands, or fathers, or
sons, as though they were all dead, drowned the

* Livy, xxii. 54. * Livy, loc. cit • Livy, xxii. 55.

262 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

voices of those who spoke. Orders were issued that
the women, if wail they must, should wail within their
own houses, and henceforward silence, mournful in-
deed but dignified, was observed in the public streets.
All assemblies of the people were prohibited. M.
Junius Pera was named Dictator ; the city l^ions were
called out ; the whole male populatipn — some eight
thousand slaves and criminals among them — were
armed, and the angry gods were propitiated, as best
they might, by the punishment of guilty Vestals, and
by the burying alive of Greek and Gallic men and
women in the Roman Forum.*

After a few days more hopeful news came. A des-
patch arrived from Varro himself, saying that he had
escaped from the carnage, and was doing his best to
reorganise and to rally the ten thousand demoralised
fugitives who had at last found their way to Canu-
sium. More important still, Hannibal was not on
his way to Rome, but was still encamped on the
field of Cannae. The Romans breathed more freely ;
but from other parts of the Roman world tidings
of fresh danger, fresh disaster, or fresh shame, came
pouring in. One Carthaginian fleet was threaten-
ing Lilybaeum, another Syracuse. The force sent
northwards to watch the Gauls had fallen into an
ambuscade and had been cut off to a man.^ Worse
still, a body of Roman nobles who had escaped
from Cannae, thinking that all was lost save their
honour, had determined, regardless even of their
honour, to fly beyond the seas, and would have carried

' Livy, xxii. 56, 57 ; Appian, vii. 27.

i* Polyb. iii. 118. 6. Livy (xxiii. 24) places it later.

IVn V DID NO T HANNIBAL MARCH ON ROME ? 263

their purpose out had not the young Scipio rushed in
amongst them, sword in hand, and sworn that he
would slay anyone who would not bind himself never
to desert his country.^

And why did not Hannibal march at once on the
panic-stricken city ? Roman historians and Roman
generals could not refrain from expressing their
thankfulness and their surprise at his dilatoriness or
his blindness.^ In JuvenaFs time Roman schoolboys
declaimed upon it in their weekly themes.' Mahar-
bal, the master of the Numidian cavalry — if indeed
the story be true, and not what the Romans imagined
ought to have been true — exclaimed, in an outburst
of vexation at the chance which was thrown away,
that the gods had taught Hannibal how to win, but
not how to use, a victory ; ,* and the greatest master of
modern warfare. Napoleon himself, has joined in the
general chorus of condemnation. But perhaps the
best and the all-but-sufficing answer to those who say
that Hannibal ought to have advanced on Rome, is
the simple fact that Hannibal himself, the foremost
general of all time, and statesman as well as general,
did not attempt it. Moreover, all the arguments which
we have seen, held good after Trasimene against such
an advance, held equally good now. There were still
the stone walls of the city. There was still the popula-
tion of Latium and of the surrounding country, as yet
untouched by the war, hostile to him to a man ; still —

> Livy, xxii. 53 ; Val. Max. v. 6, 7.

2 Plutarch, Fabius MaximuSy 1 7 ; Val. Maximus, ix. 5. 3 ; Floras,
ii. 6. 19-20.

' Juvenal, Satire \n, 161-163. * Livy,. xxii. 51.

264 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

after the first few days of panic, of which Hannibal,
laden with booty and with half Italy between him
and Rome, could hardly have taken advantage — the
unbroken resolution of the citizens themselves.
Hannibal never liked sieges, and was seldom suc-
cessful in those he undertook ; he forbore at this
moment to besiege even Canusium with its feeble
and panic-stricken defenders. Finally, his long-
cherished hope of the defection of the Italian allies
seemed now at length to be not only within his sight,
but, if only he was patient or prudent, already almost
within his grasp. The battle of Cannae had been too
much for the resolution of Apulia ; Samnium had
already in part joined him ; Lucania and Bruttium rose
in revolt The Greek cities in the south were prepared
to hail him as their deliverer; Campania, it was whis-
pered, was wavering in the balance, and ready at the
sight of the conqueror to go over to Carthage.^
Thus deprived of her allies, Rome, he hoped, would
fall almost by her own weight.

Never did the self-control and the true nobility of
soul of Hannibal, never did the unbending resolu-
tion of the Roman Senate, display itself more con-
spicuously than at this moment. Never, in the
very moment of victory, did Hannibal lose his head.
The good of his country was even now nearer to his
heart— ^and doubtless it was the only thing that was
nearer to his heart — than his hatred to Rome. Think-
ing that it might be advantageous to Carthage to
conclude peace, and that she might now do so almost

> Polyb. iii. Ii8; Livy, xxii. 6i ; xxiii. I, &c. Cf. Appian, vii.
31. and 33-35.

GREATNESS OF ROME. 265

- r I _

on her own terms, he called the Roman prisoners to-
gether — almost the only occasion in his life on which
he brought himself to speak a friendly word to any
Roman — and told them that he did not wish that the
strife which he was waging should be internecine ; he
was willing to take a ransom for them, and some of
their number might go on their parole to Rome to ne-
gotiate the matter. Even in the first flush of his vic-
tory,, he bade Carthalo offer terms of peace, if he saw
that the Roman wishes turned in that direction. But
the Romans also rose to the emergency. Fifty years
before, as has been already related, they had told the
victorious Epirot that Rome never negotiated with an
enemy so long as he was on Italian soil ; and the answer
which they had given to Pyrrhus then in words they
gave now to a general greater than Pyrrhus, and
crowned with a far more overwhelming victory, by
their deeds. They spoke no word and thought no
thought of peace. Their want of troops was urgent,
but they refused, as the story goes, to buy with
money men who had disgraced themselves by sur-
render ; ^ and when Varro neared the city, ob-
noxious though he was to the aristocracy on account
of his low birth and of bis career, and branded
with the defeat of Cannae, not one word of re-
proach was uttered against him. His efforts only,
not his failures or his mistakes, were remembered,
and the citizens went forth in a body to meet him,
and thanked him, in words that are ever memorable,
for not having despaired of the republic.^ The

> Polyb. vi. 58. 2-13 ; Livy, xxi. 60, 61; Appian, vii. 28.
^ Livy, xxii. 61, ad fin.

366 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Roman historians have a right, here at least, to con-
gratulate themselves that they were not as were the
Carthaginians. The defeated Roman general received
a vote of thanks for his unsuccessful efforts : a de-
feated Carthaginian would have been nailed to a cross.
After the battle of Cannae the character of the
war is changed, and it loses something of the inten-
sity of the interest attached to it Hitherto the tide
of invasion has run, as Dr. Arnold has pointed out
in an eloquent passage,^ in one single current, and
that current so magnificent and so resistless, that it
rivets the attention of even the most careless specta-
tors. There has been no reverse, hardly even a check,
from the moment when Hannibal left his winter
quarters at New Carthage, till he stood victorious on
the field of Cannae. The most vivid of historians can
do little by word-painting to make Hannibal's achieve-
ments stand out in more startling relief than they do
already by their bare recital. The dullest annalist, if
only he record them truly, cannot make them seem
commonplace. The eye can hardly wander as it sees
the great drama develope itself step by step, and
sweep irresistibly on towards what seems its legiti-
mate and necessary conclusion. The obstacles in-
terposed by Nature herself — rivers and marshes and
mountain chains — seem interposed only to stimulate
the energies and to heighten the glory of him who
could surmount them all. Each difficulty overcome
is an earnest to Hannibal of his power to grapple
with the next, and is used by him as a stepping-stone
towards it That they had crossed the Pyrenees, he

* See Arnold, Rom, Hist, vol. iii., ch. xliv., ad init.

UNBROKEN SUCCESS OF HANNIBAL. 267

told his soldiers when they were hesitating on the
Rhone, was a proof that they could pass the Alps.
When they had reached the summit of the Alps, he
told them they had already seized the citadel of
Italy, and had only to walk down and take posses-
sion of the city. Four times over he had how mea-
sured his sword with the future conquerors of the
world, and each time he had been victorious in an
ever ascending series of successes. At theTicinus he
first met the Roman cavalry, and it was their hasty
retreat from the field of battle which alone saved
them from a rout. At the Trebia, however the consul
might try to disguise it, it was no retreat at all, it was
a total rout. At the Trasimene it was neither retreat
nor rout, it was the extermination of an army. At
Cannae it was the extermination, not of one but of
two armies, and each of them twice its usual size.
This was the pinnacle of Hannibal's success, and a
pinnacle indeed it was.

Almost as wonderful as Hannibal's victories over
Nature or his enemies, were his victories over his
own followers. Under the spell of his genius, the dis-
cordant members of a motley Carthaginian army —
disaffected Libyans and Numidians, barbarous and
lethargic Spaniards, fierce and fickle Gauls — were
welded into a homogeneous whole, which combined the
utmost play of individual prowess with all the precision
of a machine. No whisper of disaffection or of mutiny
was ever heard in Hannibal's camp.^ Italians de-

* Polybius, xxiv. 9. 5. 'Ayvlfias iirraKai9tKa Utii fitlifas iv rois
{nrcdOpois, Koi irXetVrois ii\\o<p6\ois koI irfpayX^rrois hf9pd<rt "xjp^ffdyi^vos
irphs a7rriXiri(rfi4vas koX 'irapaS6^ovs i\irl9as, vn* odHtyhs oUt^ iw%fiov\f{fOri rh
Toodvav, oCt* iyKaT€\€i<l>0ri (nrh r&y av<TTpar€vofi4yo9y,

268 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

serted by thousands to Hannibal ; but no Hannibalian
veteran, even when his star was on its wane, ever de-
serted to Rome. Politic as he was brave, and generous
as he was far-sighted, Hannibal could arouse alike
the love and the fear, the calm confidence and the
passionate enthusiasm, of all the various races who
served under his standard. • The best general, a high
authority has said, is he who makes the fewest mis-
takes ; but what single mistake can the keenest critic
point out which marred the progress or chequered
the success of these three first extraordinary years ?
They are years, moreover, any one of which might have
made or marred the reputation of any lesser general.
Unfortunately we know Hannibal only through his
enemies. They have done their best to malign his
character ; they have called him cruel, and, happily,
almost every specific charge of cruelty supplies
us, even with our imperfect knowledge, with the
materials for its own refutation.* They talked of
* Punic ill faith * till they came themselves to believe

* The judgment of Eolybius himself on Hannibal, ix. 22-26 ; xi. 19,
&c., is .on the whole both just and appreciative. He tells us explicitly
(ix. 24) that an officer of his called Hannibal Monomachus was the
author of many of the acts of cruelty which were attributed to his chief.
Livy (xxviii. 12) does full justice to the ability of Hannibal, but not to
his character; Silius Italicus, /*««. i. 56 seq., exactly expresses the
ordinary Roman view in the following lines : —

* Ingenio motus avidus, fideique sinister
Is fuit : exsuperans astu, sed devius aequi :
Armato nuUus diviim pudor : improba virtus,
Et pacis despectus honos, penitusque medullis
Sanguinis humani flagrat sitis.'

This is only the echo of the end of Livy, xxi. 4.

CHANGE IN THE WAR AFTER CANNjE. 269

in its existence, or to think that the name proved
itself. But what people or what town, it may well be
asked, which Hannibal had ever promised to support,
did he voluntarily abandon, or of what single act of
treachery can it be proved that he was guilty ? They
made as light as they could even of his achievements,
by attributing to Phoenician cunning, or to the blind
forces of Nature, the severity of defeats which no pa-
triotic Roman could believe were due to his indivi-
dual genius alone, for it was an individual genius such
as they had never seen or imagined. A storm of sleet
at Trebia, the mist at the Trasimene, the wind and
clouds of dust * or a rtise de guerre of some deserters at
Cannae — such were the transparent fictions by which
the Romans attempted to disguise from others, and
perhaps even from themselves, that they had found
their master. We know Hannibal, let us repeat it
once more, only from his enemies ; but in what cha-
racter, even as painted by his best friends, can we
discern such vivid and such unmistakable marks of
greatness } The outline is commanding, imperial,
heroic ; and there is no detail with which our mate-
rials enable us to fill it in at all, which is not in per-
fect harmony with the whole.

After Cannae the tide of invasion ceases to flow
onward in one irresistible sweep. It is broken up
into a number of smaller currents, which, though they
are doubtless each planned by the ruling mind, and
conducted by the master hand, are often in the nature
of by-play rather than have any direct bearing on

* Livy, xxi." 56 ; xxii. 4 and 43 ; Appian, vii. 20 and 22 ; Floras,
ii. 6. 13-16 ; Zonaras, ix. I.

270 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the main issues of the war. They are, moreover, always
difficult and often impossible to follow. The Romans,
taught by the experience which they had bought
so bitterly on four battlefields, decline any longer to
trust themselves within the reach of Hannibal's arm,
or to stake their safety on any single blow ; while
Hannibal, lacking the reinforcements which he had a
right to expect, and which it is impossible to believe
that the Carthaginian Government, had they been
animated by a tithe of the spirit of their general,
could not have despatched to him before this, has to
adapt the plan of his campaign to his altered circum-
stances and his ever-straitening means. The Numi-
dian cavalry, as they die off, have to be replaced by
Gauls, and the Libyan and Spanish veterans by
Samnites or Lucanians, who had long since bowed
their necks tv the Roman yoke. Isolated sieges, em-
bassies to distant potentates, pressing messages to
Carthage, rapid marches and countermarches, am-
buscades and surprises, the sudden swoop on Rome,
and the doom of Carthage, recognised by Hannibal
in the ghastly head of his brother Hasdrubal, thrown
.with Roman brutality into his camp — these still lend
life and variety and a deadly interest to the struggle
such as we find in few other wars ; but we feel all the
time that the war is not what it was. It is not that
HannibaFs eye has grown dim or his natural force
abated. His right hand never lost its cunning. In-
vincible as ever in the field, we shall see Hannibal, for
years to come, marching wherever he likes, no Roman
general — and there were sometimes half a dozen
of them round him — daring to say him nay. Follow-

GENIUS OF HANNIBAL. 271

ing the example of Fabius, they dogged his footsteps,
or hung upon the hills above him, while he encamped
fearlessly in the plain below ; but when he turned his
face towards one and the other, they scattered before
him in all directions as the jackals before a lion. Yet
we feel throughout, what Hannibal must soon have
come to feel himself, that fate had at length declared
against him. It is a noble but a hopeless struggle^
and we are fain to turn away from the spectacle of so
heroic a soul struggling against what it knows to be
inevitable. It is indeed a psychological puzzle how
any one man — even though he were the greatest pro-
duct of the Phoenician race — can have combined such
opposite, nay such contradictory qualities as must
have met in the man who, like one of the world-
stormers of more modem times, Attila or Zinghis
Khan or Tamerlane, could carry everything before
him in one impetuous and overwhelming sweep of
conquest, from Saguntum to Cannae in the three first
years of the war, and then for its twelve remaining
years could maintain the struggle by a warfare which
was, in the main, defensive, hoping against hope, and
each year confined to narrower limits with an ever-
decreasing force against an ever-increasing foe. It
would be well worth the while of the military student
to trace, if it were possible with accuracy, the means
by which the genius of Hannibal, as great in defence
as in attack, and in patience as in impetuosity, pro-
longed for thirteen years a warfare, which, if only
the Romans had been led by a Hannibal, or the Car-
thaginians by any one but him, must, in one way or
the other, have been brought to a close almost at once.

272 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

But we cannot do so ; for at the very time that the
war undergoes the change which has been just de-
scribed, we lose also the guidance of the historian
who, if anyone, could have enabled us to follow closely
its vicissitudes.

Polybius was a Greek of the highest culture, en-
dowed with a rare independence of character and
with a genuine love of truth. During his exile from
his native country he was, as we shall see hereafter,
admitted into the inner circle of the Scipios, obtained
access to their family documents, heard in conversa-
tion their family legends, and was, in all respects,
treated like one of themselves. He could hardly
therefore, under the circumstances, avoid having a
Roman, and still more a Scipionic, bias ; but his un-
tiring research, his clearness of judgment, and his
natural candour have, in spite of that bias, and in
spite of the time which separated him from them,
enabled us hitherto to get at what is doubtless very
nearly the truth of the events he records. But hence-
forward we have no such independent means of
checking the gross falsifications or exaggerations of
the Romans. Another Greek historian, indeed, there
was, a man named Silenus, who might have given us
an independent, or, at all events, a Carthaginian
version of the events of the war, drawn from direct
personal observation. Silenus, we are told by C.
Nepos, accompanied Hannibal in his campaigns,
shared his tent, and seems to have been specially
commissioned by him to write a history of his expe-
dition.^ He must have been able to converse with

* Com. Nepos, Hannibal^ xiii. 3 ; Cicero, DeDiv. i. 24, gives us on

POLYBIUS AND SILENUS, 273

Hannibal in his native language, for the versatile
Phoenician, we know from the same source, was not
ignorant of Greek. ^ But, unfortunately, of the writings
of Silenus, if any such ever existed, not a paragraph^
not a sentence, not a word, has come down to us direct.
Did ever any historian, we are tempted to ask, have so
magnificent a chance, enjoy such near access to the man
who was making history, and making it on so gigantic
a scale, and yet produce absolutely nothing which
could survive him ? The * table-talk ' of Napoleon at
St. Helena will always retain its deep human interest,
even though the idol itself may have been long dis-
crowned, and the whole Napoleonic legend dissipated,
as it has already to a great extent been by Lanfrey
and others in the clear light of authentic documents.
It is -melancholy to think how much greater interest
would have attached to the table-talk of Hannibal,
the table-talk of the man, whose noble image no
friend has been able adequately to paint and no foe
to mar. But the same fate which has deprived us of
all adequate knowledge, of knowledge, that is, drawn
from internal, or, at all events, not unfriendly sources,
of Carthage herself, has, with cruel consistency, also
deprived us of what might, perchance, have thrown a

his authority the famous * somnium Hannibalis,* and says of him, *is
autem diligentissime res Hannibalis persecutus est.* Livy (xxvi. 49)
quotes him once as *the Greek Silenus.'

* Sosilus, a Lacedaemonian, is said by Com. Nepos (loc. cit.) also to
have accompanied Hannibal and to have given him lessons in Greek.
Of his writings Polybius had not formed a high opinion ; his history was
* full of gossip such as would delight a barber ; ' oh yhp iffropias iAXck
KOvpeaKTJs Koi iravZiiiJiov \aKiu% tixoiye doKovffi rd^iy tx^^^ *^^ hlvc^xiv (Pol.
iii. 20. 5). On Hannibal's knowledge of Greek, cf. Cic. De Oraiore,
ii. 10.

T

i74 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

blaze of light on the inner character and aims of the
greatest of her citizens, and have shown us not merely
what Hannibal did, but what he was.

Although, therefore, we have dwelt at length upon
the first three years of the war wherein victories and
defeats are on so gigantic a scale, and where each step
can be traced with accuracy, or has a direct bearing on
the main result, it seems consistent alike with the scope
and object of this book, and with our own views of
what is desirable or even possible, to pass more lightly
over its remaining thirteen years, endeavouring mainly
to bring into relief those incidents which appeal to
the imagination, which are characteristic of the rival
nations or of their leaders, and which are of universal
or of lasting significance. The campaigns themselves
it is impossible to follow accurately in a part of the
war where it must be admitted that, in spite of the
seven graphic books of Livy devoted to it, and the
supplementary fragments of several other ancient
writers, the materials for a trustworthy history are, on
the whole, so meagre and so onesided.

REVOLT OF CAPUA. 275

CHAPTER XIV.

REVOLT OF CAPUA. SIEGE OF SYRACUSE.

(b.c. 216-212.)

Capua revolts — Marcellus — Hannibal winters at Capua —Latin colonies
still true to Rome — Great exertions of Rome — Hannibal negotiates
with Syracuse, Sardinia, and Macedon — His position at Tifata —
Fabius and Marcellus Consuls — The tide turns against Hannibal —
He gains possession of Tarentum — The war in Sicily — Importance
of Syracuse — Its siege and capture —Its fate.

The victory of Cannae led almost immediately to
the revolt of Capua, a city second only to Rome in
wealth and power, and able to put into the field, when
disposed to do so, a force of thirty thousand men.
But this acquisition was shorn of half its value by the
stipulation made by the ease-loving inhabitants and
granted by Hannibal, that no Capuan citizen should
be required to serve in his army.^ It was an arrange-
ment which cost him dear ; but cost him what it might,
it was ever afterwards religiously observed by him.
Naples Hannibal had already tried to capture by a
coup de main, but, failing in the attempt, he had not
cared to besiege it in form ; nor was he more success-
ful at Nola, which was prevented from revolting by

* Livy, xxiii. 7,

T 2

276 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

the energy and skill of M. Claudius Marcellus, the
ablest general whom the agony of the last three years
had brought to the front ; perhaps as able as any
whom the Second Punic War produced for Rome at
all.i

As consul, six years before, Marcellus had slain
with his own hand the huge Gallic chieftain Virido-
marus, and had, for the third and last time in Roman
history, dedicated the spolia opima in the temple of
Jupiter Feretrius.* When after the battle of Cannae
Varro was recalled to Rome, it was Marcellus who had
taken the command of the 10,000 Roman survivors
at Canusium.^ He it was who with them had boldly
followed Hannibal into Campania, and with them
now shared the credit of repelling Hannibal from
before Nola.^ It was no slight credit ; for as Livy,
with proud humility, and, perhaps, pardonable ex-
aggeration, remarks, it was in those dark days more
difficult to avoid being conquered by Hannibal than
it was afterwards to conquer him.^ Like Fabius, Mar-
cellus knew how to avoid defeat, but he knew better
than Fabius how and when to strike a vigorous blow.
If Fabius deserved to be called the shield of Rome,
Marcellus might with equal right be called its sword.^
He has doubtless been overpraised by Roman writers,
who drew their notions of him from the panegyric

passed on him by his son^ — a very doubtful authority
V

' Livy, xxiii. I and 14.

* Livy, Epitome, xx. ; Plutarch, Marcellus^ 6-8.
' Livy, xxii. 57 ; Plutarch, Marcellus^ 9.

* Livy, xxiii. 14-16. * Livy, xxiii. 16 ad fin.

* See Plutarch, Fabius and Marcellus^ passim.
' Ibivy, xxvii. 27 ad fin.

HANNIBAL WINTERS AT CAPUA, 277

for an historian — and Cicero, in particular, with the
especial object of contrasting him with Verres, has attri -
buted to him those qualities of mercy, generosity, and
refinement in which, like most of his contemporaries,
he was conspicuously wanting.^ He was a rough
soldier, uncultured as Marius, and hardly less cruel ;
but during the next eight eventful years Rome could
hardly have done without him. The dread of Han-
nibal had, at length, taught the city to know a good
general, and to keep him when she had found him,
and she showed her appreciation of Marcellus by break-
ing through for ever the insane tradition which brought
a military command to an end on a predetermined
day. For the next eight years his is the name in the
Roman annals which we hear most often, and that
on all the most critical occasions. He served, in fact,
as consul and proconsul in alternate years in almost
continuous succession ; and when, at last, he fell in an
ambuscade, his body was treated with marked honour
by the great Hannibal himself.

Foiled at Nola, Hannibal turned his attention to
Casilinum, a town situated on the Vulturnus, and
then containing a mixed garrison of Praenestines and
Perusians who had taken shelter within its walls, when
they heard of the disaster of Cannae.^ Leaving a
sufficient force to blockade the place, he went with the
remainder into winter quarters at Capua, a few miles
to the south. It has been remarked by many writers,
modern as well as ancient, that Capua proved a

* Cicero, In Verrem^ ii. lib. 4, 52-55, 58, &c.
2 Livy, xxiii. 17,

278 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Cannae to Hannibal.^ Given over to luxury and to
Greek vices, it was certainly not the place best suited
for the winter retirement of an overstrained army ;
and doubtless the troops, who had ere now wintered
amongst the snows of the Apennines or in the open
plains of Apulia, must have luxuriated in the easeful
quarters which Hannibal's sword had opened for
them. It is true also, as has already been pointed
out, that this year was a turning point in the war ;
but that it was so is due to other causes than the
luxury of Capua, and it would not seem to be true
that the troops were in any way demoralised by their
winter's comfort. They were irresistible as ever in
the field. The real difference was that the Roman
generals had learned in the school of adversity not
to trust themselves within the reach of Hannibal's
arm, and from this time to the end of the war in
Italy they acted on the Fabian maxim, and never
gave him an opportunity of fighting a pitched battle,
or, what was the same thing, of giving them a crush-
ing defeat.

Early in the spring Casilinum surrendered to
Hannibal. But the circumstances of its surrender, when
closely scanned, must have seemed more suggestive of
hope as to the ultimate result of the war to the con-
quered Romans than to the conquering Carthaginians.
For the resistance it had offered gave an unmistake-
able proof that the resolution and fidelity of a large
part of the Roman Confederation had not been
shaken even by Cannae. Its garrison, drawn at hap-
hazard from distant towns, had supported life on such

' e.g. Floras, ii. 6. 21 ; cf. Livy, xxiii. 18 ; Zonaras, ix. 3.

THE LATIN COLONIES TRUE TO ROME. 279

scanty supplies of corn or nuts as could be sent float-
ing down the river by night, in the hope that while
they escaped the keen eye of Hannibal they might
not escape those who were rendered keener still by
the pinch of hunger ; nor was it till after mice and
herbs, and even the leather thongs of their shields,
had been consumed, that the garrison surrendered,
stipulating, even then, for their liberty on payment of
a sum of money. The terms of capitulation were, as
Livy himself admits, loyally observed by the ' per-
fidious * Hannibal, though he also frankly tells us
that some of his predecessors, m an access of patriotic
hate, had affirmed that the survivors of the siege were
massacred by the Numidians as they returned to their
homes.^ Such fidelity on the part of this motley
garrison must have raised doubts in the mind of even
the victor of Cannae and the master of Capua, whether
he had not undertaken a hopeless task. He might
cut off one of the Hydra's heads, but two seemed to
spring up in its place. Might there not be many
Casilinums in other parts of Italy } Even in those
country districts, the fidelity of whose inhabitants ap-
peared to have been shaken by the victory of Cannae,
the towns were still staunch to Rome. There were
still, for instance, Beneventum in Samnium ; Nola,
Naples, and Cumae in Campania ; Luceria, Brundu-
sium, and Venusia in Apulia ; Tarentum in lapygia ; .
Rhegium and Consentia, Petelia and Croton, among
the Bruttii ; and each of these, it might be presumed
from the example set by Casilinum, would have the
strength and the spirit to stand a desperate siege. In-

* Livy, xxiii. 19.

28o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

deed, no single Italian colony, throughout the whole
of Italy, had as yet opened her gates to Hannibal ; still
less any town which enjoyed the full Roman citizenship.

The active operations, therefore, of the year 215
did not open quite so gloomily for Rome as might
have been anticipated. The consuls were the old
dictator Fabius and Tib. Sempronius Gracchus. In-
credible exertions were made by Rome to bear the
strain which was put upon her. Double taxes were
imposed and paid, and freewill contributions were
offered by the citizens, which it was understood
were not to be repaid till the treasury was full ; in
other words, not till the war was over. The year,
therefore, which followed the butchery of eight le-
gions at Cannae saw fourteen new ones raised
to take their place, six of them in other parts of
the Roman world, and the remaining eight in Italy
itself. On his side, Hannibal can hardly have mus-
tered more than 40,000 men, even if we include his
recent levies in Samnium. It must be remembered
that till towards the close of 216, after fighting four
pitched battles, and marching and countermarching
through the whole of Italy, Hannibal had received
no single soldier and drawn not a single penny from
the home-government of Carthage.^ Never before or
after was war so made to support itself, and never,
even in the hands of the author of that sinister maxim,
was it waged with such astonishing results.

But if Hannibal's victories had not yet done for
him all that he had hoped in Italy itself, might it not
be possible to gain his object by taking a wider

* Livy, xxiii. 13.

HANNIBAL NEGOTIATES. 281

sweep ? If It^ly could not be armed against Rome,
might not the surrounding countries, whose existence
was already threatened, be armed against Italy and
Rome alike ? Circumstances, at the moment, seemed
to smile on the project ; for Hiero, the ancient and
faithful ally of Rome, was just dead, and Hieronymus,
his grandson and successor, straightway joined the
Carthaginians.^ Sardinia, too, was planning revolt
from the city which had stolen her with such infa-
mous bad faith from Carthaginian rule;^ and about
the same time ambassadors arrived in Hannibal's
camp from Philip, king of Macedon, offering to con-
clude with him an alliance, offensive and defensive.*
But the bright vision rose before his eyes only to
vanish away. The revolt of Sardinia was stamped
out before it came to a head.* Hieronymus was
weak and foolish, and, setting himself to imitate the
able Dionysius who had once ruled Syracuse, showed
that he was able to imitate him only in his arrogance
and his vices, and was soon despatched by the well-
deserved dagger of the assassin.* Finally, the Mace-
donian ambassadors, when returning with the treaty
which had just been concluded between Hannibal
and Philip, fell, as ill luck would have it, into the
hands of the Romans, and so gave them a timely warn-
ing to prepare for what might otherwise have burst
upon them like a thunder-clap.®

Amidst such hopes and such disappointments the
year passed away. Throughout its course Hannibal

* Livy, xxiv. 4. * Livy, xxiii. 32 and 34.
' Polyb. vii. 9; Livy, xxiii. 33. * Livy, xxiii. 40, 41,

• Polyb. vii. 2-7 ; Livy, xxiv. 5-7. • Livy, xxiii. 38.

282 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

had retained Tifata, a hill above Capua, as his head-
quarters. No better place could have been chosen.
Here he could wait in safety the results, if any, of
the alliances he was planning ; here receive the long-
expected reinforcements from Carthage if ever they
should come. Here he could protect Capua, his latest
and his most important acquisition ; here with his
one small army he could keep three separate armies,
headed by no meaner generals than Fabius, Grac-
chus, and Marcellus, at bay, and, dealing his blows
upon them in rapid succession, could threaten now
Cumae, now Naples, and now Nola ; till at last the
apf>roach of winter warned him to transfer his troops
to his former quarters at Arpi in Apulia.^

The elections for the year 2 14 B.C. — after the consul
Fabius had given a solemn warning to the electors
to let military considerations alone influence them at
such a time of need — ended, as was to be expected,
and as Fabius had himself intended, in the re-election
of the Mentor himself, Marcellus being chosen as his
colleague.^ Seldom in Roman history had two such
men held office at the same time, and the memories
of the older citizens had to travel back to the days of
Decius Mus, or even of Papirius Cursor, till they found
or thought they found a parallel to it. In this year,
indeed, and for some years to come, Rome was likely
enough to need her shield as well as her sword. The
fourteen legions which had been thought sufficient in
the previous year, were raised now to the still more
astonishing number of eighteen ; and the wealthier
citizens contributed from their private means the

* Livy, xxiii. 46. * Livy, xxiv. 8, 9 ; Zonaras, ix. 4.

THE TIDE TURNS AGAINST HANNIBAL, 283

sums which were necessary to raise the payment of
the sailors of the fleet. ^

Capua had already begun to tremble for her
safety ; but she was reassured when the movement of
Hannibal showed that it was his intention not only
to keep what he had already won in Campania, but,
if possible, to win the whole. In vain, however, did
he attempt to surprise or to bring over Cumae, Naples,
and Puteoli, seaport towns which would have done
good service by opening direct communication with
Carthage. Hanno, moreover, on coming to co-
operate with him, with the numerous Lucanian and
Bruttian levies which he had raised, was intercepted
by Gracchus in the heart of Samnium. Gracchus
promised freedom, in the event of victory, to the
armed slaves of whom his force consisted ; and in the
battle which ensued, conscious that they were carry-
ing their liberty as well as their lives in their hands,
they cut to pieces Hanno's army, and received their
reward. The word of a Gracchus, in this as in other
epochs of Roman history, was his bond ; and a bond
which was a first-rate security.^ These reverses
brought Hannibal's plans of Campanian conquest to
an abrupt conclusion, and when he received a friendly
message from Tarentum, a place more important to
him, just then, even than the Campanian towns, from
its proximity to Macedon, he paid it a flying visit.^
But here, too, the Romans had anticipated him, and
Fabius, taking advantage of his absence, besieged and
recaptured Casilinum. The Carthaginian garrison sti-
pulated for their lives, as the Italian garrison had stipu-

^ Livy, xxiv. II. * Livy, xxiv. 1 2-1 6. ■ Livy, xxiv. 20.

284 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

lated before them ; but as they were filing out of the
gate, Marcellus, in direct violation of the terms of their
surrender, fell upon and killed a large number of them.
The bad faith in this instance, at least, was not on
the side of the Carthaginians ; and we can well under-
stand how the story of the treachery of Hannibal on
the first surrender of Casilinum was invented now as
a set-off to that of Marcellus.* Anyhow, when Han-
nibal went into his next winter quarters at Salapia in
Apulia, the tide of victory had clearly turned against
him.^ He was already waging a warfare which was
mainly defensive, and it might have seemed to anyone
who had not felt the terrors of his spring, that if only
the three armies which lay watching him during the
winter, had ventured to beard the lion, which lay
crouching in his den, they would have had a chance
of bringing the Second Punic War to a conclusion
then.

During the next two years the interest of the war
IS for the first time, in some measure, diverted from
Hannibal. The great Carthaginian, though he had
not yet spoken aloud the word ' impossible,* must have
occasionally whispered it to himself. He was still
without adequate reinforcements from home ; for the
considerable armament, which the news of Hannibal's
triumphant progress through Italy had at last shamed
the Carthaginians into raising for him, had, when
they were on the point of embarkation, been diverted
to Sardinia and Spain.' In this last country the
star of Carthage was not just then in the ascendant,
and Hannibal, who had received only a paltry force

- Livy, xxiv. 19. ' Livy, xxiv. 20. • Livy, xxiii. 13 and 32.

THE WAR IN SICILY. 285

of some forty elephants and some 4,000 Numidian
cavalry from his countrymen at home, was com-
pelled, partly from necessity, and partly, it would
seem, from lassitude, to spend the greater part of the
summer of 213 in the neighbourhood of Tarentum,
without attempting any active operations.^ With ad-
mirable policy, he had, even in the moment of dis-
appointment in the preceding year, abstained from
ravaging the Tarentine lands while he harried those
of the surrounding towns, and now he reaped the
result.^ In the course of the winter, he was half
offered, and he half forced for himself, an entrance
into the city, though he was unable to eject the re-
cently arrived Roman garrison from the citadel.^
Other and lesser Greek towns in the south followed
the example of this, the greatest of them all ; and
Hannibal, compelled to relax his grasp upon Cam-
pania, made up for its loss by appropriating to him-
self a large part of Magna Graecia.'*

Meanwhile the war, which seemed for the moment
to have spent its force in Italy, had broken out with
fresh fury in Sicily. Marcellus, the best general whom
the Romans possessed, was despatched to quell the
revolt. The whole island, with few exceptions, had
declared for Carthage ; and the active emissaries of
Hannibal, the desperation of the soldiers who had de-
serted from Rome, and the cruelties of the Romans
in the first towns which they recaptured, cut off all
hopes of a reconciliation.^ The Carthaginian Govern-

* Livy, XXV. I. ^ Livy, xxiv. 20.

» Polybius, viii. 26-36 ; Livy, xxv. 8-1 1 ; Appian, vii. 32-34.

* Livy, xxv. 15 ; Appian, vii. 35. * Livy, xxiv. 30. 35, 38-40.

286 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

ment too, from some unexplained reason, now awoke
from its sleep, and sent Himilco with consider-
able reinforcements to Sicily.^ Had they only sent
half the force to Italy in 216 which they sent in 214
to Sicily, the war might have had a different course.
They were willing and able, it seemed, to send re-
inforcements at a time and to a place where they
were not much needed ; they would not send them at
the time and to the place where they would have been
all-important.

After massacring the inhabitants of several towns,
Marcellus laid siege to Syracuse ; but all his efforts
were frustrated by the science and by the engines of
the famous mathematician Archimedes, and after
eight months of chequered warfare, he was obliged to
convert the siege into a blockade.^

Syracuse was the greatest Greek city in Sicily,
possibly the greatest of all Greek cities. It contained
within its walls four distinct towns — the island of
Ortygia, the oldest and the strongest part of the city ;
Achradina, or the city proper, crowded with magni-
ficent buildings ; and the two suburbs of Tycha and
Neapolis. The whole had been recently surrounded
by a wall eighteen miles in circumference, which in
part abutted on the sea, but was in part carried over
rugged hills or low-lying marshes, defensible in them-
selves, and now rendered doubly strong by art. The
city possessed two harbours, in the larger of which the
Carthaginian fleet, under Bomilcar, was riding at
anchor, while a Carthaginian army, under Himilco,
hovered near the walls, or made flying expeditions to

* Livy, xxiv. 35.

* Polybius, viii. 5-8 ; Livy, xxiv. 34 ; Zonaras, ix. 4.

SIEGE OF SYRACUSE, 287

other parts of Sicily, thus distracting the attention of
the besiegers. The blockade, therefore, was never
effective or complete, and it is not to be wondered at
that it was nearly three years before the city fell.

It was indeed treachery from within rather than
force from without which ultimately enabled Mar-
cellus, in the year 212, to gain possession of the heights
of Epipolae to the rear of the city, and, making these
his basis, to conquer in succession its different por-
tions.^ The two suburbs fell first, and the plunder
which they yielded whetted the appetites of the sol-
diery for the still richer stores which lay behind the
walls of Achradina and Ortygia. It was now too late
for Bomilcar or Himilco to save the city. Bomilcar
sailed away without striking a blow, and the army of
Himilco, which lay encamped on the low grounds of
the Anapus, fell victims to the fever which had so often
before saved Syracuse from a besieging force.^ By a
curious caprice of fortune, the best defence of the city
was now turned against its defenders, while it left its
assailants on the higher ground unscathed. The
Roman deserters and the mercenaries had long esta-
blished a reign of terror within the city. Having
nothing to hope, and little therefore to fear, they were
bent on holding the place to the bitter end. But
when Marcellus had been admitted by some of his
partisans into the island of Ortygia, Achradina could
no longer offer resistance. The deserters and the
mercenaries, the only portion of the inhabitants who
deserved punishment, managed to escape by night,
and the remainder threw themselves on the mercy of
Marcellus. They might well expect to receive it, for

* Livy, XXV. 23, 24. 2 Liyy^ ^xv. 26, 27.

288 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

they had been involved in hostilities which were not
of their own seeking,, and it would be hard if the
short-lived folly of Hieronymus should be held by
Marcellus to have effaced the recollection of the fifty
years' fidelity of Hiero his grandfather. But it seldom
suited the Romans to remember past services or ex-
tenuating circumstances when they had an)^hing to
gain by forgetting them. Marcellus, as Livy tells us,
had burst into tears when he first stood on Epipolae
and saw Syracuse, as he fancied, in his power beneath
him. But these were not tears of compassion, or, if
they v/ere, they were not forthcoming now when
they were most needed. The city was given over to
plunder, and the death of Archimedes while intent
upon a problem, a man whom — ^just as Alexander
bade his troops spare the house of Pindar in the sack
of Thebes — even the rough Marcellus had wished to
save, gave proof that plunder was not the only object
of the infuriated soldiery.^

So fell Syracuse, the virgin city, which had seen
two Athenian armaments perish beneath its walls ;
which had for centuries saved Sicily from becoming
altogether, what its greater part then was, a Cartha-
ginian appanage ; which had once and again, when
its turn came, under Dionysius or Timoleon, almost
driven those same Carthaginians from the island ; and
once, under Agathocles, had threatened the existence
of Carthage herself. It fell to rise no more, at least to
its former opulence. Its temples were left standing,
because they would not pay for moving ; and they
belonged to the conqueror as much where they were

^ Livy, XXV. 31 ; Florus, ii. 6. 33, 34 ; Zonaras, ix. 5.

FATE OF SYRACUSE, 289

as if they had been transferred to Rome ; but the
choicest works of art — vases and columns, paintings
and statues — were swept off to adorn the imperial city.*
It must have been an additional drop in the cup of bit-
terness which the Syracusans had to drain, that these
works of art were carried off by men who could not
appreciate them at their proper value. Sixty years
later the surpassing excellence of Hellenic art and
literature had begun to make a deep impression on the
more cultivated classes at Rome ; but if, even then, a
victorious general could stipulate, that any of the
works of art taken by him from Corinth should, if
broken on the passage to Rome, be replaced by others
of equal worth, we can hardly believe that it was
their intrinsic excellence which recommended the
treasures of Syracuse to the attention of the rude
and uncultured Marcellus. Anyhow Marcellus set an
example only too fatally followed by the conquerors
who succeeded him. It was a practice new in Roman
warfare then, and to be condemned at all times and
under all circumstances ; a practice cruel and destruc-
tive to the states despoiled, and useless for all moral
or high artistic purposes to the despoiler. It is
equally reprehensible whether it be the plunder of
half Europe by the representative of one of its most
enlightened nations, the arch-robber of modern times,
Napoleon, or the sack of a Chinese palace by those
whom the Chinese had a right, in this instance at
least, to style barbarians. If good men and great
nations have hitherto often followed the example of

* Polybius, ix. 10. 3-13 ; Livy, xxv. 40 ; Cicero, Verres, ii. 2. 3 ; ii.
4. 54, &c.

U

290 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Cicero in drawing a broad contrast between the ex-
tortions of a Verres and the high-handed plunder of
Marcellus, a Warren Hastings, or a Napoleon, it is
because they have not yet reached the moral standard
which condemns the public robber; they look askance
only at a thief.

IMPORTANCE OF WAR IN SPAIN 291

CHAPTER XV.

SIEGE OF CAPUA AND HANNIBAL'S MARCH ON

ROME.

(212-208 B.C.)

Importance of war in Spain — Successes and death of the two Scipios —
Renewed activity of Hannibal — Si^e of Capua — Hannibal attempts
to relieve it — His march on Rome — Fate of Capua — Continued
superiority of Hannibal in the field — Death of Marcellus — Influence
of family traditions at Rome — Patriotism of Romans — Latin colonies
show symptoms of exhaustion.

We have hitherto concentrated our attention as
much as possible on the main current of the war in
Italy ; but it must not be forgotten that throughout
these first six years which we have described in detail,
a side conflict was raging in Spain, the result of which
might go far to decide that in Italy. To the import-
ance of the Spanish contest the Romans and the Car-
thaginians were equally alive. It was from Spain, if
from any country, that Hannibal must draw his rein-
forcements ; and it was in Spain, if anywhere, that
those reinforcements must be intercepted and cut
down. The Romans saw that if a second army
crossed the Alps and swooped down upon the north
of Italy, while Hannibal was, at his pleasure, over^
running the south, the city would be taken between

two fires, and could not long resist. To Hannibal, on

u 2

292 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the other hand, Spain was the new world which the
genius of his family had called into existence. The
names of his father, Hamilcar, and of his brother-in-
law, the elder Hasdrubal, were still names of power
among the Spanish tribes whom they had conquered
or conciliated, and the younger Hasdrubal, a worthy
member of the same family, had been left in Spain
by Hannibal when he started on his great expedition,
to preserve the family traditions there, and to raise
fresh levies for the Italian war.

P. Scipio, as we have seen, instead of returning in

the autumn of 218 with all speed and with all his

forces from Massilia to Italy, where he might possibly

have met and crushed the worn-out troops of Hannibal

as they descended from the Alps, had sent the bulk

of his army straight to their Spanish destination, while

he himself returned to Italy with only a few followers.

To have altogether set aside the orders of the Senate

would have been a step quite alien to the character of

an ordinary Roman general, and could only have

been justified by the most complete success. But,

failing this, there is no doubt that Cn. Scipio took the

next best course in hastening off to Spain ; ^ and the

Roman Senate showed forethought which was quite

out of the common with them, in determining, whatever

the danger nearer home, to carry on this distant war

with vigour. After his defeats at the Ticinus and the

Trebia, and while the memories of the Trasimene

Lake were still fresh in the Roman minds, Publius

was sent off to Spain with a naval and military force,

which a less courageous and self-reliant people would

* Livy, xxi. 60, 61.

SUCCESSES OF THE SCIPIOS IN SPAIN, 293

have been unwilling to spare. There he joined
Cnaeus, and henceforward the two brothers carried
on the war in common, bringing over Spanish tribes
as much by their address as by their arms, and win-
ning, if the accounts they sent home were true, an
almost unbroken series of successes. After making
sure of the country to the north of the Ebro, the
Scipios crossed that boundary river, sent to their
homes the Spanish hostages which, having been de-
posited by Hannibal in Saguntum, fell by the caprice
of a Saguntine citizen into their hands,\ and in the
autumn of the year 216 — the year, it should be re-
membered, of the battle of Cannae — defeated Has-
drubal in a pitched battle near a town called Ibera,
when he was on the eve of starting for Italy with the
large army which he had recently raised in Spain or
had received from Carthage. Hasdrubal's Spanish
recruits, Livy somewhat natvely remarks, preferred to
be defeated in Spain and so to remain at home, rather
than to go as conquerors to Italy.^ The remark is
just, probably more just than even Livy imagined it
to be, for had they gone to Italy at all this year, they
would, as even the most patriotic of the Roman an-
nalists admit, not only have gone, but have returned
as conquerors. Rightly viewed, therefore, the battle
of Ibera, though the place at which it was fought is
quite unknown, was one of the most decisive in the
whole of the war, for it prevented the despatch of re-
inforcements to Hannibal in the year when they
would have made him wholly irresistible.

The two brothers made the most of their success.

* Livy, xxii. 22 ; xxiii. 26-28. ' Livy, xxiii. 29.

294 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

They enrolled Celtiberian mercenaries — the first in-
stance of such a practice on a large scale in Roman
history ; they won victories which, if they were not
half what their despatches ^ represented them to be,
were yet signal victories ; they formed an alliance with
Syphax, a Numidian prince, and seemed in 2 1 2 to be
on the point of ejecting the Carthaginians from Spain,
when, in the mid career of their success, they inadver-
tently separated from each other ; they were attacked
by Hasdrubal and by Mago, who had been recently
sent thither from Carthage, in detail, their armies
were defeated and dispersed, and themselves slain.^
It seemed for the moment as if the Romans would be
driven from Spain in the very year in which they had
confidently counted on driving out the Carthaginians.
But the death of the elder Scipios, as we shall see,
opened a free field for a younger and still abler mem-
ber of the family and one whose high destiny it was
to accomplish in Spain what his father and uncle had
been compelled to leave unfinished.

While these events were taking place in Spain,
the flame of war had burst out afresh in Italy. Early,
it would seem, in the winter of 212, Tarentum had
fallen into Hannibal's hands, and in the campaign
thus begun the hero seemed to awake, like a giant
refreshed, from his year-long repose. He was needed
each moment at Tarentum, where the citadel still
held out ; he was needed yet more at Capua, round

* Livy, xxiii. 48, 49 ; xxiv. 41, 42 ; 48, 49 ; xxv. 32. Cicero,
Farad, vii. 2, calls the two brothers, *duo propugnacula belli qui
Carthaginiensium adventum corporibus suis intercludendum putaverunt.*

2 Livy, xxv. 32-36 ; Florus, ii. 6-36.

SIEGE OF CAPUA. 295

which the Roman armies, like vultures scenting their
prey afar, seemed to be gathering for the last time.
The home government of Carthage itself needed his
controlling mind, the war in Sicily needed it, the war
in Spain, and the war in Greece. His spirit and his
influence, if not his bodily presence, were needed
everywhere, and everywhere once again they seemed
to be.^ Six Roman armies were in the field against
him. By a searching inquisition every free-born
citizen — many of them below the age of seventeen
— had been swept into the ranks,^ which were in-
tended not, indeed, to face him, for that they never
dared to do, but to harass his movements ; yet he
managed, in spite of them all, to push the siege of the
Tarentine citadel on the one hand, and, on the other,
to show himself for a moment when required on the
hills above Capua, where his mere appearance caused
the two consular armies which were threatening it to
vanish away before him. One Roman army of irre-
gulars he annihilated in Lucania ; another of regular
troops, under the praetor Fulvius, he annihilated in
Apulia ; while a third, consisting of the slaves liberated
by Gracchus, as soon as their liberator had fallen in an
ambuscade, dispersed in all directions, thinking that
they had done enough for their step-mother Italy.'*

But amidst all these brilliant achievements and
these romantic shiftings of the war, the one point of
fixed and central interest was the city of Capua.
That guilty city^ had long felt that her turn must

* Polybius, ix. 22. 1-6. * Livy, xxv. 5.

* Livy, xxv. J 9-22, *clades super alia aliam.'

* Florus, ii. 6-42, 'sedeset domus et patria altera Hannibalis.*

296 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

soon come ; she had gone now unpunished for nearly
four years, and the safety and the honour of the
Roman state alike demanded that the day of reckon-
ing should be no longer postponed. The mere pre-
sence of two large armies in her neighbourhood during
so considerable a part of these four years had caused
a scarcity within her walls before even a sod was
turned of the Roman lines of circumvallation. An
effort of Hanno to throw provisions on a large scale
into the place was frustrated by the negligence and
the apathy of the citizens themselves. The convoy
fell into the hands of the Romans/ and had Han-
nibaFs faith been what his enemies said it was, he
might have been tempted, in his vexation, to abandon
the city to her fate. She had done him little active
service since her revolt ; in fact she had stipulated
that she should not be called upon to do so ; on the
other hand the duty of protecting her had often seri-
ously hampered his movements. The other cities of
Campania had declined to follow her lead in going
over to the Carthaginians ; while the lead of Taren-
tum, on the contrary, was now being followed rapidly
by the other Greek cities in the south. But Hannibal
swallowed hiis resentment, and, appearing at Capua
while his enemies thought he was in lapygia, put the
two armies which were threatening it to flight, and, as
it would seem, revictualled it for the coming blockade.*
It was not till he had gone far to the south again,
and was scattering the smaller Roman armies there
in the manner which has just been described, that
they ventured to close in once more around the place,

* Livy, XXV. 13, 14. ' Livy, xxv. 19.

HANNIBAL TRIES TO RELIEVE CAPUA. 297

and began the siege in earnest. News of ever fresh
disaster reached Rome from the track of Hannibal's
flying squadrons, and the Senate could only console
-itself by the reflexion that the consular armies of
Fulvius and Appius, which had fled before Hannibal's
advance, were as yet intact, and were free during his
absence, at all events, to prosecute the object which
they had most at heart ^ — the punishment of the
guilty Capua.

Caius Nero, the praetor, was ordered to co-operate
with the consuls, Q. Fulvius Flaccus and App. Clau-
dius Pulcher, and the three armies in their several
camps, each with a large magazine established in a
town to its rear, settled down before the devoted
city. A double line of circumvallation was soon com-
pleted, the one to guard the besiegers from the sor-
ties of the besieged, the other to repel the expected
attack of Hannibal from without (B.C. 211). The days
of Capua were clearly numbered unless help came
from him. An adventurous Numidian from the gar-
rison made his way unobserved through the double
lines of the Romans and informed Hannibal of the
danger of the city. Taking a select band of horsemen
and light-armed troops, the Phoenician hero started
from Tarentura, and before the enemy dreamed of his
approach he appeared on Mount Tifata, According
to the plan which had been pre-arranged, a simul-
taneous attack was made on the Roman lines by the
beleaguered garrison and by Hannibal. Some of the
elephants, whose bulky frames had been with diffi-
culty forced to keep pace with his cross-country

* Livy, xxY. 22, ' ubi summa rerum esset.'

298 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

march, were killed in the attack. Hannibal threw
their bodies into the ditch, and a few of his troops
crossing over on the bridge thus formed found them-
selves within the Roman lines. But it was only for a
moment. They were outnumbered and driven back,
and Hannibal gave up all hope of thus raising the
siege. ^

One plan alone remained. He might advance on
the capital ; and the terror of the citizens when the
danger which had so often approached them, and had
so often been withdrawn, had at last really come,
might drive them to recall for the defence of Rome
the armies which were besieging Capua. Once more
a Numidian messenger made his way through the
Roman lines round Capua, and bade the citizens hold
out bravely, for Hannibals departure did not mean
that he had deserted them. It rather meant that he
was making one more effort for their deliverance, and
then he was off for Rome.^ The news of what was
coming reached the city long before Hannibal reached
it himself, perhaps before he wished to reach it. A
few days' delay would, he knew well, only increase the
panic of the citizens. Slowly he advanced along the
Latin road, passing each day some Latin fortress, and
devastating the country right up to its walls beneath
the eyes of its affrighted garrison. Before him fled a
panic-stricken throng — women and children, and aged
men — leaving their homes, like animals when the
prairie is on fire, a prey to the destroyer. On he went,
through Latium, through the only district of Italy

* Polybius, ix. 3-4 ; Livy, xxvi. 5, 6 ; Appian, Han. 38.

* Polybius, ix. 5 ; Livy, xxvi. 7.

HANNIBALS MARCH ON ROME, 299

which had not yet felt his dreaded presence, no one
daring to say him nay, till he pitched his camp upon the
Anio, only three miles from Rome, and the flaming
villages announced in language which could not be
mistaken that he was really there.^ He was there in
fulfilment of his life-long vow ; the hater face to face,
at last, with the object of his deadly hate. He was
there, the destroyer of every Roman army which had
ventured to meet him, to destroy the city which had
sent them forth. So thought at least the flying rustics
and the mass of the Roman citizens. But so did not
think the calm and clear-sighted Hannibal himself ;
nor yet, after the first days of panic had passed by,
so thought the Roman Senate. The imagination, in-
deed, of the citizens pictured to themselves the total
destruction of their armies at Capua. The air was
filled with cries of women who ran wildly about the
streets, or flocked to the temples of the gods, and
throwing themselves on their knees, raised their sup-
pliant hands to heaven, or swept the altars with their
long dishevelled hair.^

But the Roman Senate, as after Trasimene and
after Cannae, was once more worthy of itself. When
the terrible news of HannibaFs first approach came/
they had been disposed to recall the whole of their
armies to the defence of the capital ; a nieasure of
precaution which would have fulfilled Hannibal's
highest hopes and saved the beleaguered Capua. But
fresh confidence came. They recalled only Fulvius,
who, marching by inner lines, amidst a population

* Livy, XX vi. 8, 9, 10 ; Appian, Han* 38 ; Floras, ii, 6, 44.
2 Polyb. ix. 6. 3 ; Appian, Han. 39,

300 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

who bade him God- speed, managed to reach Rome by

the Appian, just before Hannibal reached the Anio

by the Latin Way.^ Two legions which had lately

been got together in the country around Rome, when

they were joined by the army which had just arrived,

gave the city a respectable garrison, and Hannibal

made no attack — he probably never intended to make

one — on the city itself. Unmolested by the Romans

and almost within their view, he ravaged the whole

country round, destroying the gardens and the villages,

and carrying off into his camp, with stern delight, the

crops and the cattle, and the booty of every kind on

which he could lay his hand.^ Then with a body of

two thousand horsemen he rode right up to the Cdl-

line gate, and passed leisurely along the walls to the

temple of Hercules, gazing wistfully at the cruel

stones which alone stood between him and his hopes,

and alone saved the inhabitants, Romans though they

were, from his avenging sword.^ The fates were

against him, but he must have felt that he had nobly

kept his vow.^

Little wonder is it, when the facts themselves are
so dramatic, and when the chief character is so heroic,
that the imagination of those who recorded the scene
ran riot in the process and filled in the details with
what they thought ought to have happened. They
pointed, for instance, their eulogies on the faith of
the Romans in their own future, by telling us how
they put up to auction the ground on which Han-
nibal's camp was pitched, and how it was bought

* Livy, xxvi. 8-9. » Polyb. ix. 6. 8, 9. ■ Livy, xxvi. 10.

* See Arnold, Rom, HisUy chap. iii. pp. 242-246.

FATE OF CAPUA, 301

at its full value ; while Hannibal, by way of repri-
sals, offered for sale to his troops the silversmiths'
shops in the Roman Forum, and flung his spear over
the walls in token of his contempt and hate.^ But
Hannibal was great enough to know when he had
delivered his blow, and he wasted no time in
lamenting that it had failed. Accordingly, he marched
off northward into the Sabine country, which he
had only skirted in his first campaign, and then
sweeping round to the south he turned fiercely upon
the Romans who were making believe to follow him,
and after taking one distant look at the unbroken
and impenetrable girdle of men, and earth, and iron,
which girt Capua in, he left her to her inevitable
fate.2

Inevitable indeed it was ; for the Romans knew no
pity, and the citizens themselves must have felt that
the murder of all the Romans residing in the city at
the time of their revolt, would have steeled even those
who were naturally pitiful against them. The sena-
tors, abandoned to despair, shut themselves within
their own houses, and left the responsibilities of the
defence to the Numidian leaders. At last when the
surrender of the city was only a question of hours,
they met at the house of one Vibius Virrius, the
author of the revolt, and after holding high festival
on such fare as the besieged city could supply, and
could lend them courage for what they were about to
do, they passed round the poisoned cup, and, to the

* Livy, xxvi. ii ; Pliny, Hist, Nat, xxxiv. 15; Floras, ii. 7.
4.7-48.

' Polyb. ix. 7 ; Livy, xxvi. 1 1.

302 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

number of twenty-seven, balked their Roman con-
querors of their long-expected revenge.^ Of the re-
maining senators, when, next day, the gates were
opened, twenty-five were sent by the orders of the
consuls to Cales, and twenty-eight to Teanum ; but
close behind them followed the victor Fulvius, and by
his command they were scourged and beheaded, one
by one, before his eyes. When the bloody work was
only half finished a despatch from the Senate arrived
bidding him reserve for their decision the question of
the punishment; but the butcher thrust it into his
bosom, and it was not till the last head had fallen that
he read the letter which might have postponed, but
would hardly have averted, their fate.* Three hundred
noble Campanian youths were thrown into prison to
perish, many of them, later, on a trumped-up charge.
The bulk of the citizens were dispersed among the
Latin colonies, or were sold into slavery. The city itself
was spared, a signal instance, remarks Livy — is he
speaking in irony or in earnest i* — of Roman clemency.
But it was no longer to have citizens or any form of
civic life. Without magistrates, and without a senate,
it was to receive year by year a prefect from Rome,
who should deal out Roman justice to such waifs and
strays of population as might be drawn thither by the
incomparable beauty of the situation or by the ferti-
lity of the soil. It was a warning also, Livy remarks —
and here he is on safer ground — to any other city
which had revolted or might yet be disposed to revolt,
of the amount of protection she might expect hence-

^ Livy, xxvi. 14 ; Zonaras, ix. 6.
• Livy, xxvi. 15.

HANNIBAUS SUPERIORITY IN THE FIELD, 303

forward from Hannibal, and of the vengeance which
would surely fall upon her from Rome.^

In vain did Hannibal endeavour by some brilliant
stroke to counteract the fatal impression which the
surrender of Capua must produce on his Italian allies.
An attempt to surprise Rhegium failed,* and all his
efforts to capture the citadel of Tarentum failed also.
Just now too Marcellus, his worthiest antagonist, re-
turned from Sicily flushed with victory, and eager, so
the Romans thought, at last to measure his sword
with his ancient foe.^ Now also an alliance was
formed by Rome with the brigands of iEtolia,* which
cut off Hannibal's last hope that Philip of Macedon
would ever be able to join him in Italy. . Every-
thing, in fact, seemed to betoken that the end was
near; but those who thought so reckoned prema-
turely. In the year which followed the fall of
Capua, the year 210, Hannibal surprised and slew
the Praetor, Cn. Fulvius, before Herdonea. Herdonea
itself, which was meditating revolt, he burned to the
ground after transferring its inhabitants to Meta-
pontum and Thurii, two of the few towns which were
still- faithful to him.* In B.C. 209, when Samnium
and Lucania had already submitted to the Romans,
and while one consul, Fulvius, was threatening Meta-
pontum and the other consul, Fabius, was pressing the
siege of Tarentum in his rear, he fought two bril-
liant actions in Apulia, which drove his third an-
tagonist, the sword of Rome, himself, to take refuge

* Livy, xxvi. 12. * Livy, xxvi. 16 and 34.

■ Livy, xxvi. 21. 29. * Livy, xxvi. 24,

* Livy, xxvii. I.

304 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

in Venusia, and to adopt the more cautious tactics
of its shield.^

In 208 and 207 his superiority in the field was as
incontestable as ever. Tarentum, indeed, which it had
cost him so much to win and so much to keep, had
been betrayed by the commander of its garrison into
the hands of the Romans, and suffered the fate, or
worse even than the fate, of Syracuse and Capua. All
the Bruttians found within it were put to death ; thirty
thousand of its Greek inhabitants were sold as slaves,
and all the works of art it contained, except its * angry-
gods,* were carried off to Rome. Yet Hannibal en-
camped beneath its walls as though the place still be-
longed to him, and in vain offered battle to its new
possessors.^ When he moved northwards into Apulia
and found himself with his ever-diminishing force face
to face with two consular armies there, he yet ven-
tured to detach a flying squadron, which cut to pieces
a Roman legion on a spot some fifty miles to his rear ;
and he held his own in the open field, waiting pati-
ently till the moment should come for striking a
blow.^

At last the moment came, and the blow which he
struck was a heavy one. The consuls, Crispinus and
Marcellus, as fate would have it, had left their camps,
each with a small band of followers, and had ridden in
company to the top of a wooded hill which lay between
their two armies. They were observed by the Numi-
dian cavalry, ready as ever for a surprise or a deed of

* Livy, xxvii. 12-14 ; cf. 20, 21.

« Livy, xxvii. 15, 16; Appian, Han, 49; Plutarch, Fabuis, 22.

■ Livy, xxvii. 26.

FAMILY TRADITIONS AT ROME, 305

daring. There was a sudden charge, and Crispinus,
wounded to the death, staggered back to his camp,
while the body of the other consul, the bravest of the
brave, was found by Hannibal himself where it had
fallen. The Phoenician gazed on it for a while in
silence, and then remarking, * There lies a good soldier
but a bad general,' ordered it to be honourably burned
and the ashes to be sent to his son.^

But dangers greater even than the loss of Mar-
cellus were now threatening the Romany. It is one
special glory of Rome that at no period of her
history could it be said that her safety depended upon
the existence of any single citizen. The abilities
or the character of an individual, however command-
ing, are a bad security at the best for the life of a
state ; and at Rome had such a military or political
genius been wanted, he would not, with the one ex-
ception of the age which produced Julius Caesar, have
been forthcoming. But we have already had occasion
to remark, that if Rome produced only one man who
rose to the very front rank in any department of
human greatness, the number of those who came in
the rank next below it was exceptionally large. The
national ideals of Rome, if not the noblest ideals con-
ceivable, were yet, in many respects, truly noble, and,
what is more, they were attainable and not unfre-
quently attained. If one man fell, whom, at the mo-
ment of his death, it seemed that Rome could ill
spare — just when the execution of some darling pro-
ject, an extension of the franchise, a reform of a crying

* Polyb. X. 32 ; Livy, xxvii. 26-28 j Appian, vii. 50 ; Plutarch,
MarcelluSf 28-30 ; Zonaras, ix. 9.

X

3o6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

abuse, or the conquest of some immemorial enemy
seemed to be within his grasp — others were always
ready to step into his vacant place. Not unfrequently
it was his own son, or grandson, who filled the gap ;
for nowhere in ancient history, nor indeed in any his-
tory unless, possibly, it be in that of England, do we
find so commanding a place occupied by the concep-
tion of hereditary duties and traditions. In demo-
cratic Greece and in aristocratic Carthage there was
very little of such influence. The greatness of the
Barcine family, with their traditionary policy carried
on at Carthage through three generations, is some-
thing altogether exceptional and admits of special
explanation. But at Rome we habitually find the
same objects, political and social, taken up and car-
ried on from age to age by members of the same
noble or the same plebeian family. Everyone knew
beforehand the hereditary disposition, and therefore
the general line, which, on any particular question,
would be taken by a member of the Valerian or the
Horatian, the Cornelian or the Claudian gens. When,
through a period of many generations together, was
there a Claudius who was not arrogant ; a Gracchus
whose word was not his bond ; a Decius who woulci
not devote himself in .battle for the state.? When
was there a Scipio who did not temper Roman sim-
plicity by Greek culture ; a Cato, who was not * a foe
alike to villany and to refinement ; * a Brutus who
would not have struck down a tyrant } There was
little fear then that any great principle of policy would
die out at Rome for lack of representatives. At Rome
the family always came before the individual, and

SYMPTOMS OF EXHAUSTION. 307

what is more important to note here, when once the
feud between patrician and plebeian had been fought
out, the state always before the family.

It was thus upon the patriotism and the exertions
of the whole body of the citizens, and not upon any
part or parts of them, that the state throughout the
periods of the Punic wars could safely count. The
wise extension of the franchise, whether in whole or
in part, in fruition or in prospect, first to the Latin
colonies and then to the other cognate tribes of Italy,
formed, as it were, a wall of adamant round the Roman
Confederation, against which all the waves of the
Phoenician invasion had hitherto dashed in vain. Was
the treasury exhausted, or was some special tax re-
quired to meet a pressing emergency.^ Again and
again in the course of the Punic wars the need was
met by private and voluntary contribution. Most
notably in a memorable scene described by Livy, in
the year 210, the Senate, acting on the principle that
nobility imposes obligation to an extent to which
few aristocracies have ever followed them, set the
example of devoting the whole of their moveable
property beyond what was necessary to support life>
to the service of the state, and their example was
imitated, and imitated enthusiastically, by all orders
and degrees in the commonwealth.^

But in the year 209 symptoms of exhaustion, if
not of disaffection, had begun to show themselves
even within the bounds of the Confederation, amongst
the Latin colonies themselves. Twelve of the thirty
colonies, and those some of the oldest and the most

' Livy, xxvi. 35, 36.
X 2

3o8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

important, in the most widely scattered parts of Italy,
•declared that the Romans must look for no more
men and money from them, for they had neither men
nor money to give. The news fell like a thunderbolt
Aipon the consuls who were the first to hear it, and the
Roman Senate knew that if the example spread all
ivas lost ; but they were prudent enough, or generous
lenough, to require no forced service. Accordingly,
throwing themselves on the fidelity and devotion of the
remaining eighteen, they prepared to face their
redoubtable antagonist with such help as they alone
could give her.^

* Livy, xxvii. 9, 10.

APPROACH OF HAS DRUB AL FROM SPAIN. 309

CHAPTER XVI.

BATTLE OF THE METAURUS.

(207 B.C.)

The approach of Hasdrubal from Spain — His messengers fail to find
Hannibal — Brilliant march of Nero — Battle of the Metaurus —
Triumph and brutality of Nero.

It seemed to augur ill for Rome that the stress
of the war had at length begun to tell on the spirit
and the fidelity of the Latin colonies themselves.
But, more ominous still, news reached the city in B.C.
208 that after the vicissitudes of the ten years' struggle
in Spain, Hasdrubal had at length eluded Scipio, had
entered Gaul by the passes of the Western Pyrenees^
was raising fresh levies there, and early in the follow-
ing summer might be expected in Italy.^ Rome had
been in no such peril since the morrow of the battle
of Cannae ; for the approach of Hasdrubal indicated
that the great Spanish struggle, to support which
Rome had sent out some of her best troops and
generals, even when Hannibal was threatening her
existence, had at last been played out, and had ended
in favour of Carthage. It seemed, indeed, that Car-
thage by conquering in Spain had assured her victory
in Italy alsD. For the last two years one son of

* Livy, xxvii. 36.

3IO CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Hamilcar had been overrunning Italy from end to
end, and had more than once brought Rome to the
brink of destruction ; and now with her resources
diminished, her population halved, and her allies
wavering, she had to face the onset of a second son
of the same dreaded chieftain, who would sweep
down with new swarms of Gauls and Spaniards from
the north, while his brother, for the last time, moved
up for her destruction from his retreat in Bruttium in
the south. A bitter comment this on the brilliant
victory which Scipio was reported to have just won
at Baecula in Spain ! ^ For Hasdrubal, his defeated
adversary, was not penned, as he should have been,
within the walls of Gades, but was collecting allies at
his leisure in the heart of Gaul.

A few precious months of winter remained to
prepare for the double danger which the spring
would bring. C. Claudius Nero, a man who had
done fair service before Capua and in Spain, was one
of the consuls selected for the year of peril. His
plebeian colleague, M. Livius, was one of the few
Romans then living who had enjoyed a triumph ; but
his temper had been soured by an unjust charge of
peculation, and he was personally hostile to Nero.
However, in the face of public danger, he was brought
to forget his grievances and to act in concert with
his colleague for the public good.^ Livius, so the
Senate arranged, was to await the approach of
Hasdrubal near the frontiers of Hither Gaul, while
Nero was to impede, as best he could, the movements
of Hannibal in the south. Seventy thousand Romans

' Polyb. X. 39 ; Livy, xxvii. 1 8. « Livy, xxvii. 34, 35.

HASDRUBAL BESIEGES PLACENTIA. 311

and as many allies were put into the field for this, the
supreme effort, as it seemed, of the republic.^

As soon as the weather permitted, Hasdrubal
started from Auvergne. Everything was in his favour.
The mountaineers were friendly, the mountain passes
were free from snow, his army gathered strength and
bulk as it advanced, and was in a more effective con-
dition when it entered the plains of Italy than when
it had crossed the Pyrenees. What a contrast to
his brother's advance ten years before ! Less prudent
than his brother, however, Hasdrubal sat down to
besiege Placentia when he had better have been
pressing on towards his destination.^ When at last
he moved forward, the Roman army retreated before
him, till it reached the small town of Sena to the
south of the Metaurus. From this place Hasdrubal
sent messengers who were to bid Hannibal meet him
at Narnia, only some thirty miles from Rome. But
Hannibal the messengers failed to find, and, falling
into the hands of the Romans, their despatches were
read not by the Carthaginian but by the Roman
general.^ Since the beginning of the campaign Han-
nibal had been rapidly shifting his quarters backwards
and forwards between Bruttium and Apulia amidst
a network of Roman fortresses and armies, always
followed and never opposed by his vastly more
numerous foe. The victories attributed by Livy and
others to Nero during this period are purely fictitious,
and are explicitly contradicted by Polybius himself.*
Hannibal, as fate would have it, must have gone

* Livy, xxvii. 36 and 38. • Livy» xxvii, 39.
■ Livy, xxvii. 43 ; Appian, Hann, 52.

* Polyb.x. 33. 1, 2, and XV. ii. 7-^12 ; Livy, xxvii. 42.

312 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

southwards just before his brother's messengers were
despatched to find him. Had it been otherwise, they
must have reached him in safety ; and in that case we
can hardly doubt that the brilliant march northward
would have been not Nero*s but HannibaFs, and that
the Metaurus, would have seen the collapse of the
fortunes not of Carthage but of Rome.

Nero formed a bold resolution — one almost with-
out precedent at this period of Roman history — to
desert the province and even a portion of the troops
confided to his keeping by the Senate ; with the
remainder to march rapidly northward, a distance of
200 miles, to join Livius, to crush Hasdrubal by a com-
bined assault, and then to return again before Hannibal
should have discovered his absence. It was a bold
step, but hardly bolder than the extremity of the
danger required ; above all, it was justified by the
event. Nero took care not to inform the Senate of
what he proposed to do till he was already doing it,
thus putting it in their power to co-operate with his
later movements, but not giving them the chance of
impeding the decisive blow. He had already sent
messengers to the friendly cities near his line of
march bidding them help, as best they could, the
progress of their deliverers. The 6,000 infantry and the
1,000 cavalry selected for the enterprise started, like
the 10,000 Greeks before them, in total ignorance of
their destination. They believed that they were
about to surprise some petty Carthaginian garrison
near at home in Lucania ; and their enthusiasm, when
the momentous secret was communicated to them,
was only equalled by that of the Italian provincials

BATTLE OF THE METAURUS. 313

who thronged the roadside with provisions, vehicles,
and beasts of burden, and accompanied the army with
their blessings and their prayers. The soldiers de-
clined everything that was not necessary for their
immediate support ; and pausing, we are told, neither
to eat nor to drink, hardly even to sleep, in a few
days they neared the camp of the other consul.^
Nero entered it at night and distributed his wearied
troops among the tents which were already occupied,
so as to avoid exciting the suspicions of Hasdrubal
till he should meet them in the field. But next
morning the quick ear of the Carthaginian noticed
that the trumpet sounded twice instead of once within
the enemy's camp, and when the Romans offered
battle his quick eye rested with suspicion on the
travel-stained troops, and the draggled horses of a
portion of the army. Concluding that the other con-
sul had arrived and that his brother's army must have
been dispersed or annihilated, he remained within his
camp throughout that day, and at nightfall began to
retreat towards the friendly Gaul. He reached the
Metaurus in safety, but here his guides played him
false, and instead of crossing at once by the ford he
wandered hither and thither on the nearer side vainly
searching for it in the darkness.^

Morning light brought the Romans, and Hasdru-
bal had now no choice but to draw up his army where
it was, with a rapid and dangerous river in his rear.
The Spanish veterans, his main strength, he placed
on the right, intending to lead them in person against
Livius. ' The Ligurians, with the elephants in their

' Livy, xxvii. 45. • Livy, xxvii. 46, 47.

314 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

front, formed the centre, while the Gauls, untrust-
worthy as ever — except when led by Hannibal — were
drawn up on a hill to the left, which, by the mere
advantage of position, they could hardly fail to hold
against Nero. The Spaniards, under Hasdrubal's
own eye, fought nobly and with every prospect of
success, till Nero, unable to dislodge the Gauls, left
them to themselves, and by .a brilliant manoeuvre,
passing behind the whole length of the Roman army,
fell at once on the Spanish flank and rear. Thus
surrounded they were cut to pieces where they stood,
and Hasdrubal, after doing all that a general could
do to save the fortunes of the day, rushed into the
midst of the enemy's cavalry, and died as became
the son of Hamilcar and the brother of Hannibal.^
The greater part of the elephants, when they became
unmanageable, were killed by their own drivers who
were furnished with weapons for the purpose, and
who knew how and where to strike the fatal blow.
The Gauls were slaughtered as they lay on the
ground, heavy with wine or wearied out by their
night's march.

The victory of Rome was not bloodless, but it was
complete. Hasdrubal's army, whatever its size, was an-
nihilated, and some of the Roman annalists, regardless
alike of truth and probability, strove to make out that
the slaughter of the Metaurus equalled that of Cannae.^
From the agonies of suspense the Romans passed at

* Polyb. xi. 1,2; Livy, xxvii. 48, 49 ; Florus, ii. 6. 49-52.

* Livy, loc. cit. ; Appian, Hann. 53. Polybius (xi. 3) is perhaps
himself outside the truth when he makes the number of slain on the
Carthaginian side to have been 10,000.

SUCCESS OF NERO. 315

once into the exuberant enthusiasm of victory. They
had been rudely awakened to the consciousness that
there were two Hannibals in Italy. They forgot now
that there was still one ; that THE Hannibal was still
in Italy, still unconquered, and, as far as they knew,
unconquerable. A well-deserved triumph was granted
to the victorious generals. It was the first which
the Sacred Way had seen ever since Hannibal had
entered Italy, for it was the first time, by the confes-
sion of the Romans themselves, that victory had
smiled on their arms.^ The consuls triumphed in
common ; but Nero was the hero of the day. To
him was due alike the strategy of the northward
march — a march perhaps only equalled in history
by the advance of Marlborough from Belgium to the
Danube in the campaign of Blenheim — and the bril-
liant stroke which decided the battle. To Nero, how-
ever, also belongs the act of revolting barbarism
which wound up his achievements and must for ever
detract from his fair fame. Returning to his army in
Apulia as quickly as he had left it, he carried with
him the head of Hasdrubal, which he had caused to
be severed from his body, and, with true Roman
brutality, ordered this ghastly trophy of victory to be
flung into the camp of Hannibal, who, it is said, was
still ignorant that the general opposed to him had
ever left his quarters. Hannibal recognised the
features of the brother whom he had so long and
eagerly expected, and in them sadly saw the doom of
Carthage.^

* Cf. Hor. Ode iv, 4. 41, * (\}X\ primus alma risit adored.'

• Livy, xxvii. 51 ; Flonis, ii. 6. 53 ; Zonaras, ix. 9.

3i6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER XVII.

p. CORNELIUS SCIPIO.

(210-206 B.C.)

Scipio in Spain — His early history — His character and influence — Made
proconsul — Takes New Carthage — Carthaginians finally driven out
of Spain.

It IS necessary, now that we have reached this, the
decisive, point of the war, to direct our attention once
more to Spain ; for it was on the Metaurus that Spain
as well as Italy was lost to the Carthaginians, and it
was in Spain, at this very time, that, moving in an
atmosphere of mingled war and love, amidst romantic
expeditions and hair-breadth escapes, fortunate in
what he did, and perhaps more fortunate in what he
failed to do, surrounded by devoted friends, like
Laelius, or by court annalists, who saw all his doings
through the bright halo which he or they diffused
around them, the young general was being nursed
by Fortune into fame, who was soon to drive the
Carthaginians from Spain, then, without striking a
blow, was to compel Hannibal to withdraw from
Italy, was next to crush that greatest of all heroes in
Africa, and, finally, to bring to a conclusion there the

SCIPIO'S EARLY HISTORY, 317

long agony of the Second Punic War. P. Cornelius
Scipio is one of the central figures of Roman history.
His presence and his bearing exercised a strange fasci-
nation over all who came within its influence, and his
name, with the romances that began to cluster round
it even in his lifetime, was a yet more living power
with posterity. It turned the head of even the sober-
minded Polybius, and has given an air of unreality
and of poetry to such fragments of his history of this
portion of the war as have, unfortunately, alone come
down to us. Let us pause for a while on the ante-
cedents and the surroundings, the virtues and the
failings, of so important and conspicuous a per-
sonage.

Scipio was the son of that Publius who, by an
unlooked-for reverse of fortune, had just been defeated
and killed in the field of his numerous victories and
in the full tide of his success. But Fortune, so capri-
cious towards the father, was unswerving in her
devotion to the son. He was then only twenty-four
years of age ; ^ but, young as he was, he was already
known to fame by his conduct on three critical occa-
sions. As a mere stripling of seventeen he had saved,
or it was believed that he had saved, his father's life
at the battle of Ticinus at the risk pf his own ;^ after
Cannae it was his resolute bearing which had shamed
or frightened the recreant nobles of Rome from de-

* Livy, xxvi. 18 ; Val. Max. iii. 7. i. Polybius (x. 6. 10) makes,
him twenty-seven ; but that this is a mere slip is evident from his state-
ment only three chapters before (x. 3, 4) that he was seventeen at the
time of the battle of Ticinus, B.C. 218.

• Polyb. X. 3. 3-5 ; Livy, xxi. 46.

3i8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

serting the fast sinking ship of the state ; ^ at the age
of twenty-three he had been candidate for the Curule
iEdileship, and when the magistrate objected that he
was not yet of legal age, he replied that if all the
Quirites wished to make him aedile he was old
enough.^ It was a diaracteristic reply, a sample of
that contempt for the forms of law, and that mingled
respect and contempt for popular opinion, which
marked his conduct on several occasions of his life,
and goes some way to explain alike what he did and
what he failed to do ; and now, when his father and
uncle had fallen in Spain^ and the comitia were being
held for the election of some one to fill their place,
and, as the story goes, people were looking anxiously
one upon the other to see who would offer himself for
a task wherein two Scipios had faifed, it was the
young Publius himself who, with mingled modesty
and self-reliance, came forward, and was straightway
chosen proconsul amidst the exclamations of all
present.^

A second secret of Scipio's influence was the
popular belief, in part, at least, shared by himself,
that he was the special favourite of the gods and
inspired by them in all he did. Stories were in the
air of his divine descent, and even of his miraculous
birth, which he had too much prudence either to affirm
or to contradict.* Why should the favourite of the
gods refuse to avail himself of any help they offered
him } In the existence of the gods and in their
special help to him Scipio doubtless implicitly be-

> Livy, xxii. 53. * Livy, xxv. 2. \Livy, xxvi. 18 ; Zonaras, ix. 7.
* Cf. Polybius, x. 2. 5 and 5. 5 ; Livy, xxvi. 19.

SCIPiaS CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE. 319

lieved; but the ostentatious secrecy of his visits to
the Capitol before undertaking any work of import-
ance must have been suggested by the credulity of
the multitude rather than his own. At all events,
his interviews with Jupiter there never ended in any
other way than a careful consideration of the circum-
stances of the case in the privacy of his own study
would have been likely to suggest. He was not,
therefore, as has sometimes been said, *a real en-
thusiast,' nor was his a 'genuinely prophetic nature;'
on the other hand, he was no mere vulgar impostor.*
He had enough of enthusiasm himself to evoke
it towards himself in others, not enough to allow
himself, under any circumstances, to be hurried
away by it. One of the greatest of Roman heroes,
he was himself only three parts a Roman. He was
fond of literary men, and was himself not destitute of
Greek culture ; ^ a weakness which certainly could not
be charged against any genuine Roman of the old
school. By turns the hero and the enemy of the
populace, he knew how to win yet how to despise,
how to use yet sometimes how to abuse, popular
favour. In Spain, with the air and the surroundings
of a king, he had enough Roman feeling to reject the
regal gewgaws and the regal title which the Spaniards
pressed upon him ;^ at Rome, after his victory at
Zama, he showed that he still retained enough of the
genuine republican spirit to refuse the invidious
honours — the dictatorship for life and the statue in
the Capitol — which the citizens in the ecstasy of their

* See Mommsen, ii. 159, 160. * Livy» xxix. 19.

• Polyb. X. 40 ; Livy, xxvii. 19.

320 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

joy would fain have given him.^ But he had not that
inborn reverence for law and for authority which had
made the Romans what they were, and which would
have bidden him cheerfully remain in Italy, even when
he knew he had it in him to finish the war in Africa,
rather than resist the powers that be.^ A Roman of
the old type would have submitted to an accusation
or to a punishment which he knew to be unjust rather
than involve himself in the semblance of illegality ;
but Scipio, when his brother Lucius was called to
give an account of the moneys which he had received
from King Antiochus, and was about to present to the
Senate the document which would have cleared or
condemned him, proudly snatched it from his hands
and tore it to pieces before their eyes.^ So again,
in his last appearance in public life, when it was his
own turn to have his conduct galled in question, he
reminded his accusers, by a happy stroke of audacity
.which was akin to genius, that this was the day on
which he had defeated Hannibal at Zama, and called
upon them to follow him to the Capitol that they
might there return thanks to the gods who had given
them the victory, and pray that the Roman state
might have other citizens like himself.^ The appeal
was irresistible, and the Romans once more showed
that they could not judge a Manlius in sight of the
Capitol. These incidents have a grandeur peculiarly
their own ; but it is hardly a Roman grandeur. As a
young man Scipio was fond of romantic situations,

' Livy, xxxviii. 56 ; Val. Max. iv. I. 6.

2 Livy, xxviii. 40. ■ Livy, xxxviii. 55 ; Val. Max. iii. 7. i.

* Livy, xxxviii. 51.

SCIPIO'S NOBLE QUALITIES. 321

and fortune showered them upon him. The charms
of his personal presence, and the moral and the ma-
terial victories which they won, his adventurous inter-
views with Spanish or Berber princes, or with hostile
generals, his chivalrous treatment of captive maidens
and their bridegrooms or their suitors, fill a large part
in the histories which remain to us of his Spanish and
his African' campaigns.* Much of the setting of
these stories may be imaginary; but the stories
themselves doubtless rest on a substratum of fact,
and they reveal to us, however dimly, a union of gal-
lantry and generosity, of prudence and of passion, of
sensibility to the charms of beauty, and yet of resist-
ance to their power, which enable us to feel some-
thing of the fascination which made Scipio the idol
of his soldiers, of the natives of Spain and Africa,
and of the great body, and those the more generous,
of his fellow-citizens. Above all, if Scipio had not
all the most characteristic Roman virtues, he was
free from the worst Roman vices. He was not cruel,
not faithless, not indifferent to human life ; as times
went, he was not self-seeking. He could appreciate
virtue in an enemy, he could be generous to a fallen
foe. He could observe the terms of a capitulation, he
could suppress a mutiny without promiscuous mas-
sacre, and could sometimes take a town without
slaughtering the inhabitants in cold blood. He could
even enter into the peculiarities and characteristics of
nations other than his own, and, unlike his younger
namesake, could shrink from obliterating a seat of

^ SeePolyb. Bk. x. xi. xiv. xv. passim ; Livy, xxvi. 49, 50 j xxvii.
1 7- 19; xxviii. 17, 18; XXX. 13-15, &c. ; Appian, vL 29-30, &c.

Y

322 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

ancient civilisation and commerce at one fell blow.
In fine, if he was not a worthy antagonist to Hannibal,
he was the least unworthy that Rome, the nurse of
heroes, could in this sixteen years' war produce ; and
if he was the favourite of Fortune, it must be admitted
that that capricious goddess has seldom conferred her
favours on one who did so much to deserve them.

Scipio crossed to Spain with ii,ooo men towards
the close of the year 210,' and early in the spring of
the following year he struck a blow which showed
that a general of a new stamp had appeared upon
the scene. Finding that the three Carthaginian gene-
rals, Hasdrubal and Mago, sons of Hamilcar, and Has-
drubal, son of Gisco, were passing the winter in
widely different parts of Spain each more distant
from New Carthage than he was himself, and hear-
ing also that the garrison had been reduced to 1,000
men, he determined to make a rapid descent upon
that city, the head-quarters of the Carthaginian Go-
vernment and the key to their position in Spain.*

New Carthage was a noble city situated on a land-
locked harbour, the only good harbour on the south-
east coast of Spain. It was surrounded on all sides by
water, save where an isthmus only 250 yards wide
connected it with the mainland. Its fortifications,
strong ever}^where, were doubly strong here ; but there
was one weak spot which fortune or the gods were pre-
paring to reveal to their favourite. The object of the
enterprise was entrusted to Laelius, Scipio's lifelong
friend, alone ; and it was arranged that he should enter
the harbour with the fleet just when Scipio with his land

* Livy, xxvi. 19. * Polyb. x. 7 ; Livy, xxvi. 20 and 42.

SCIPIO TAKES NBW CARTHAGE. 323

force appeared before its walls. Not a whisper of
what was coming reached the city till it was already
come ; and not a misadventure or a hitch occurred
from the moment when the adventurous Scipio left
Tarraco to the time when New Carthage was in his
power. The assault indeed of the Romans on the
fortifications of the isthmus was repelled ; but Scipio
intended it to be so, for it was not the real point of
his attack. Taking advantage of the ebb tide which
left the waters of the lagoon in the western side so
low that they could easily be forded — a fact known to
few but himself — and, by a happy inspiration, bidding
his soldiers follow him boldly where Neptune himself
pointed out the way, Scipio led a select body of his
troops to the attack, through waters which besiegers
and besieged might well have thought would sub-
merge them all. The walls here proved to be acces-
sible, and they were quite undefended. The attention
of the garrison had been called elsewhere, and with
the help of scaling ladders and the god of the sea the
small band soon found themselves masters of New
Carthage. New Carthage — ^\vith its mines of gold and
silver, its arsenal and its dockyards, its merchant
vessels and its stores of corn, its stands of arms and
its engines of war, its skilled workmen and its host-
ages drawn by the suspicious Carthaginians from all
the Spanish tribes — all belonged to Rome. The work
of slaughter over — and terrible work it was — Scipio
addressed himself to the distribution of the booty.
If the stories that have- come down to us may be
trusted, the survivors of the massacre had rea-
son to admire the skill with which their conqueror

324 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

managed to turn foes into friends, and so, as it were,
to arm Carthage against herself. Under promise of
their freedom the Punic shipwrights cheerfully trans-
ferred their services to Rome. Captive princesses,
who might have been given up to the Roman sol-
diery, or reserved by the young general for himself,
were restored to their parents or their betrothed
lovers ; and the hostages, those standing monuments
of Carthaginian mistrust, were dismissed to their
homes and converted into so many pledges of Roman
moderation and good will.'

It seemed once more as if the Spanish war was
over ; and Laelius was despatched to Rome to report
to the Senate, perhaps to magnify, the achievements
of his friend. We are surprised indeed, after so bril-
liant a beginning , to find that the young general,
instead of pressing on at once to Gades, fell back on
Tarraco whence he had started, and that Hasdrubal,
after he had been conquered by him in a decisive
battle at Baecula, was yet able, as has been already
related, to give him the slip and to go off with a con-
siderable force to Italy, thus to all appearance accom-
plishing the object of the long Spanish struggle.^ It
was not till Hasdrubal had spent the winter months
in Gaul, had invaded Italy, and had fallen on the
Metaurus, that Scipio ventured to advance into Bae-^
tica, and then, step by step, after a decisive victory
at Elinga or Silpia, drove the Carthaginians into
Gades, * their first and their last possession ' in Spain.^

' Polybius, X. 8-16 ; Livy, xxvi. 43-50 ; Appian, Hisp, 19-23.

• Livy, xxvi. 51 ; xxvii. 18. 20, 36.

• Polybius, xi. 20-24 > Livy, xxviii. 2. l2-i6.

CARTHAGINIANS DRIVEN OUT OF SPAIN 325

Nor was it till the year 205 that Mago, the last of
the brood of Hamilcar, passed over into the Balearic
Islands, leaving to Rome, or rather to two centuries
of half-suppressed revolts against her cruel and
treacherous rule, the empire which his family had
founded and built up, and of which they had so long
postponed the fall.^

* Livy,xxviii. 36, 37 ; Appian, Hisp, 37.

326 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WAR IN AFRICA ; BATTLE OF ZAMA,

(206-202 B.C.)

Scipio returns to. Rome and is elected Consul — Receives leave to
invade Africa — Goes to Sicily — His doings and difficulties there —
Sails for Africa — Massinissa and Syphax — Roman ignorance of
Carthage — The fall of Carthage, how far a matter of regret —
Siege of Utica — Scipio's command prolonged — He bums the Car-
thaginian camps— Sophonisba — The Carthaginian peace party —
Sons of Hamilcar recalled to Africa — Mago obeys the summons
— Hannibal obeys it — The Lacinian column — Joy in Italy
— First operations of Hannibal in Africa — Battle of Zama— Dignity
of Hannibal — Terms of peace — Results of the war — Alternative
policies open to Rome.

On his return to Rome towards the close of the year
206, Scipio enumerated to the Senate, which had been
assembled for that purpose in the Temple of Bellona
outside the walls, the long roll of the actions which
he had fought, the towns which he had taken, and the
cities which he had subdued. Not a Carthaginian,
he proudly told them, was left alive in Spain. He
expected to receive a triumph ; and, truly, in view of
his successes, if not of his intrinsic merits, he deserved
it as few Roman generals had done before him. But
the Senate, half envious and half distrustful of the
young general, determined to abide by precedent
where, as in this case, precedent fell in with their

SCIPIO CHOSEN CONSUL 327

own inclinations ; and refused an honour which had
never yet been granted except to a regularly com-
missioned officer of the state. Scipio, who had con-
quered as a mere proconsul, could console himself
only with the conquests he had yet in view, when
it might be that there would be no such artificial
obstacle to the reward which they merited. He had
not long to wait ; for at the Comitia, to which the
people flocked as much to see as to vote for the con-
queror of Spain, he was unanimously -chosen consul
— though he had not yet filled the office of praetor,
and was still only thirty years of age — and with the
purpose clearly understood, even if it was not expressed
in words, that he should transfer the war to Africa.^

But the fathers of the city were fuUof «iisgivings.
They remembered Regulus ; they reflected that Hanni-
bal was still in Italy, that there might beJiife in the old
lion yet, and that even in his death-grapple, he might,
like the blind and captive Samson, slay and scatter
his foes once more as he had done scores of times in
the heyday of his strength. The old Fabius, true to
his policy to the end, advised Scipio to reckon with
Hannibal and his few soldiers in Italy rather than
attempt to draw him off to Africa, where he would
have the whole power of Carthage at his back. But
Scipio showed clearly enough that, if the Senate re-
fused the leave he sought, he would seek it from the
people ; and if he failed to get it from them, he would
still take it for himself. The Senate, therefore, were
glad to save their dignity and to shift a portion of
their responsibility from their own shoulders, by

^ Polybi'is, xi. 33. 7-8 5 Livy, xxviii. 38.

328 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

assigning the province of Sicily to the newly elected
consul, at the same time giving him permission to
cross thence into Africa * if he should judge it to be
advantageous to the state/ They declined, however,
to vote him a sufficient army, and would hardly even
allow him to accept the services of those who came
to him as volunteers. The army assigned to him
consisted of but two l^ions, and those the two
which had survived the defeat at Cannae, and which had
been kept on duty in Sicily, as in a kind of penal
settlement, ever since. But the warlike nations of Italy
supplied him with seven thousand trusty volunteers ;
and the Etruscans, those ancient mariners of the Ita-
lian waters, eagerly furnished him with the rough
materials for a fleet. Once more the fairy tale of the
First Punic War is repeated in honour of the favourite
of the gods, and a growing wood was transformed in
forty-five days into a fleet of ten quadriremes and
twenty quinquiremes.*

With this meagre provision for what he was medi-
tating, Scipio landed in his province. There he fur-
nished three hundred of his army with horses which
he had taken from the Sicilians ; a delicate operation,
but so adroitly managed that we are asked to
believe that the despoiled provincials, instead of
resenting it as an injury, thanked him as for a
benefit. Discharged veterans of the army of Mar-
cellus came and enrolled themselves amongst his
followers, and supplies of provisions came flowing in
from all the corn-growing lands of Sicily. The ships
which he knew to be seaworthy he sent under the

* Li\7, xxviii. 40-45.

SCIPIO CAPTURES LOCRL 32Q

command of Laelius to devastate the African coast ;
those which were newly built he laid up for the
winter in dry docks at Panormus, that their unsea-
soned timbers might warp or leak in a place where a
warp or leak would not be fatal to them. He then
went into winter quarters in the pleasant town — too
pleasant his critics at Rome deemed it — of * Syra-
cuse.' But the inactivity which was thus forced or
seemed to be forced upon him in his own province
he turned to good account by the blow he managed
to strike in the province of his colleague. He threw
a small force across the straits of Messana, and by an
arrangement with a party within the town, he got pos-
session of Locri, an important place near the southern-
most point of Italy. Hannibal thus found himself
deprived for the moment of his base of operations in
Bruttium. But the gain was a doubtful one for the
reputation alike of Scipio and of Rome ; for the cap-
ture of the town was followed by a series of terrible
atrocities which Scipio, if he did not actually authorise,
took no measures either to prevent or adequately
to punish, and which reflected seriously on the state
in whose service the worst offenders were.^

The complaints of the unhappy Locrians fell like
a spark upon the smouldering dislike and discontent
v/ith which a large party in the Senate regarded
Scipio, and the question of his recall and punishment
was openly debated. He was giving himself up — so
the Senate, with old Fabius for their spokesman, in-
dignantly exclaimed — to his own enjoyment in Sy-
racuse, clothed in Greek garments, frequenting the

' Livy, xxix. I. 6- 10 ; Appian, Hann, 55 ; Zonaras, ix. 11.

330 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Greek wrestling school, and — a worse offence still —
studying Greek literature, instead of enforcing ordi-
nary discipline among his troops, or of carrying the
war, as he had threatened or promised, into Africa.*
But some at least of these accusations proved to be
ill-founded, and early in 204 B.C. the armament which
Scipio had collected in face of the lukewarmness or
the opposition of the Senate sailed, amidst all the
pomp and circumstance of war, from Lilybaeum, that
ancient stronghold of the Phoenician race. Accounts
differ as to the size of the armament. Some of our
authorities — they can perhaps in this instance hardly
be called authorities at all — place the number of men
on board as low as 12,000, while others make it as
high as 36,000. But if we take the higher, and per-
haps the more likely estimate, we still cannot fail to
observe how vastly inferior in numbers this expe-
dition was to those which were again and again
despatched against Carthage, or her maritime de-
pendencies, in the course ^f the First Punic War. Even
if the Senate had taken up the project warmly, as a
more far-sighted body would probably have done,
the waste of life and property occasioned by Han-
nibal's fourteen years' war in Italy must have made
any armament which they were able to raise, look
small in comparison with that of Regulus ; and we
are surprised to find that the Carthag nians, who still
claimed, in a measure, the empire of the seas, who knew
what an invasion of Africa meant, and who had long
seen that it was coming, yet offered no opposition by
their fleet to Scipio's approach. The small force

* Livy, xxix. 16-20.

MASSINISSA AND SYPHAX. 331

that was for ever to deprive Carthage of her proudest
title, and to make her a mere dependency of Rome,
landed on the third day, without seeing a vestige of
the foe, near the * Fair Promontory ; ' and Scipio, ac-
cording to his wont, drew a not ill-grounded omen of
success from the name of the spot to which the gods,
or his own carefully considered plans, had guided
him.^ Fortune, however, did not smile on his first
attempt. Already while in Spain, he had prepared
the way for his invasion of Africa by opening friendly
communications with the two Numidian chieftains
from whom, in such a contingency, he might have
most to hope or fear. These two chieftains were Mas-
sinissa, head of the Massylians, a tribe which dwelt
immediately to the westward of the domain of Car-
thage, and Syphax, who ruled the Massaesylians, a
much more important tribe, occupying the region of
the modern Algeria. Before we enter on those final
operations of the war in which they play so impor-
tant a part, it is necessary to give a brief account of
the antecedents of each of these barbarian. princes.

Massinissa had, during many years, fought against
the Romans in the Spanish war, and had done good
service to Carthage ; but, even there, seeing which
way fortune was turning, he had, with the astute
fickleness of a barbarian, come to a secret under-
standing with Scipio.^ Syphax was also bound by
treaty to Carthage. But it was a treaty which the
Carthaginians well knew that he would break as soon
as he should deem it to his advantage to do so ; and

* Livy, xxix. 25-27.

« Livy, XXV. 34 ; xxvii. 19 ; xxviii, 13. 16, 35. Appian, Pun, 10.

332 CARTItAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Scipio flattered himself that by a romantic visit which,
amidst great dangers, he had paid to his court in the
midst of the Spanish war, he had secured alike the
support of the Berber chieftain and the admiration of
Hasdrubal, his Carthaginian antagonist It was by a
strange coincidence indeed that the rival generals,
unknown to each other, had abandoned their respec-
tive armies in Spain, and, crossing over into Africa,
had met with antagonistic objects, but in no un-
friendly intercourse, at the court of an African prince*
Fascinated by Scipio's address and bearing, Syphax
readily promised the alliance which he asked. But the
surpassing beauty of Sophonisba, the daughter of his
other guest, made a more permanent impression on
the amorous barbarian ; and on the promise of a mar-
riage with her, Syphax was induced to throw up his
newly formed friendship with Rome, and to renew
his old one with Carthage.^ He forthwith drove his
nephew Massinissa out of his hereditary kingdom ;
and when that chieftain, after innumerable adventures
and escapes, now presented himself in Scipio's camp
near the Fair Promontory, it was only as an outlaw at
the head of a few horsemen, whose aid might cost
the Romans more than it was worth.^ This was a
keen disappointment to Scipio, and, so far, seemed to
augur ill for his African campaign.

It might have been expected that in this, the last
period of the war, waged as it was, almost under the
walls of Carthage, some clear rays of light would
have been thrown on the internal state of the city

* Livy, xxviii. 17. 18; Appianj Hisp. 30; Zonaras, ix. lo, 11.

* Livy, xxix. 29. 33 ; Appian, Pun. 11-13.

ROMAN IGNORANCE OF CARTHAGE. 333

itself. But in this, as in other parts of the long
struggle, we look in vain for such a clear and truthful
narrative of events as would have enabled us to pic-
ture to ourselves the wonderful city from which Han-
nibal, one of the greatest wonders of all times, came.
Here, if anywhere, and now, if anywhen, we might
have expected that the Romans would have taken
the pains to explain to themselves, if not to others,
the condition and the constitution, the fears and the
hopes, the strength and the weakness of that great
city which had so long contended with them
on equal or even superior terms. What a price-
less boon, for instance, would Scipio himself, with
that taste for literature with which the unlettered
Roman senators twitted him, and with his power of
understanding, or at Ifeast of influencing, nations less
civilised than his own, have conferred on all future
times, had he cared to tell us exactly what he saw,
and what he inferred, about his great antagonists !
The facts of these last few years we cannot think
would have been less instructive, less thrilling, or less
strange, than those fictions in which the Scipionic
circle appear habitually to have indulged. The glory
of Rome would not have been lessened, it might even
have been increased, had she given her adversaries,
now at any rate, that credit which was their due.
We might then have been able to judge, on better
grounds than those on which most historians have
passed so ready and so easy a judgment, as to what
elements of civilisation and of progress, along with
those other elements of weakness which are admitted
on all hands, Carthage might have transported into

334 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Europe, had the result of the war been different. We
$hould then have had more data for determining the
question, as to what would have been the gain and
what the loss to the world at large had the Mediter-
ranean continued, what Nature seems to have in-
tended it to be, the highway of independent nations,
each perhaps endeavouring, but, happily, each failing,
to conquer its neighbours ; instead of becoming a
Roman lake, connecting nations whose separate ex-
istence had been stamped out of them, and all of
them controlled, assimilated, civilised — if we like to
call it so — by the all-levelling power of Rome.

The services rendered to civilisation by Rome are
clear enough ; but it is not so clear what services
might hereafter have been rendered to it by a free
Athens and a free Corinth, by the inexhaustible energy
of the Greek colonies in Sicily, by a possibly resus-
citated Tyre or by the new-born Alexandria ; last
not least, by a Carthage freed, as Hannibal was able
for a short time at least to free it, from its narrow
oligarchy, and by a Rome which would have been
content with her natural boundaries, content, that is,
to assimilate, and to weld into one, the various tribes
which were most of them cognate to herself, from
the straits of Messana to the Alps. He is certainly
a bold historian who, with these — so large a part of
the conditions of the problem — not before him, will
pronounce dogmatically that it was in all respects
well for the world that Rome was able utterly to
destroy her ancient rival. The phrase, *it would
have been,' is a dangerous phrase to use in the study
of history. It is difficult to avoid using it altogether ;

PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE OF CARTHAGE. 335

but it must always be remembered on what slender
grounds we can use it at all, and how infinite are the
possibilities of which no account is taken. If it be
presumptuous to say, as Napoleon did, that God
is always on the side of the big battalions, it is
hardly less presumptuous to say dogmatically that
in this or that instance He was on the side of the
weaker ones. It surely savours of presumption to
maintain, as one historian,^ never to be mentioned
without high honour, has, throughout this portion of
his noble history, maintained, that Providence must
surely have been plotting against Carthage, and
watching over Rome, because when Hannibal ad-
vanced on the city, two legions which had been raised
for the Spanish war happened to be still lingering
there, and could be utilised for her defence ; or again,
because the great Carthaginian happened to have
turned southwards to Bruttium instead of northwards
to Lucania, at the moment -when the messengers of
his long looked-for brother were despatched to find
him. We know all too little of the nation which pro-
duced Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal to say what
that nation might have done in happier times under
the guidance of such commanding geniuses. The
Second Punic War ends as it was begun. It is re-
corded from first to last only by Hannibal's enemies,
who neither understood, nor cared to understand, what
made him, and what made his city, great. Yet it is
the old story. It is the man who paints the prostrate
lion ; but it is the lion, and not the man ; it is Hanni-
bal, and not his conquerors, who, in spite of the

* Dr. Arnold, vol. iii. p. 244, &c.

336 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

painter's intention, rivets all eyes and stands forth alone
from the canvas, alike in his military genius and in
his patriotism, in his hundred victories and in his
one defeat, without a parallel in history.

The Carthaginians were not more ready to meet
Scipio by land than they had been by sea. They
were without a sufficient army, and Hasdrubal, the
son of Gisco, their best available general, was just
then at a distance.* For nearly fifty years Africa
had been free from invasion ; and the soldiers of Scipio
found the same unwalled towns and villages and the
same fruitful and well-watered estates which the
followers of Agathocles and Regulus had found
before them. From this rich and prosperous country
a motley and a panic-stricken multitude flocked
towards Carthage, driving their flocks and herds
before them ; and the gates of the capital were shut
and the walls manned, as though for an immediate
attack. Pressing messages for aid were sent to Has-
drubal and Syphax ; and the sense of relief was great
when Scipio, instead of advancing on the capital^
showed that he intended first to secure Utica.

Frequent skirmishes with the Numidian cavalry
took place, in which Massinissa, availing himself to the
utmost of his knowledge of the Numidian tactics, did
good service to the Romans.^ The ships which
Scipio had sent back to Sicily returned laden with
provisions and with his siege train ; but for forty
days the oldest Phoenician colony in Africa resisted,
with true Phoenician endurance, all his assaults. Two

» Livy, xxix. 28 ; Appian, Pun. 9.

* Polybius, xiv. I, 2 ; Livy, xxix. 28. 34, 35 ; Appian, Pun. 16. 25.

SC/PIO'S COMMAND PROLONGED. 337

large armies under Hasdrubal and Syphax advanced
to its relief, and on the approach of winter Scipio was
obliged, without having won any decisive success, to
abandon the blockade, and to transfer his camp to
an adjoining tongue of land, which was known fof
centuries afterwards as the Castra Cornelia.*

So ended the year 204. Neither the hopes nor
the fears which Scipio's invasion of Africa had called
forth had as yet been fulfilled ; and so far did the
war still seem from its termination, that the Italians
were not yet able to look upon themselves as secure
from invasion. They even thought it prudent to
build ships for the special purpose of protecting their
coasts from possible attacks on the part of the Car-
thaginian navy.^ Twenty legions were put into the
field for the year 203, and the command of Scipio was
prorogued, not, as on previous occasions, for a fixed
period, but till such time as the war should be brought
to a conclusion.^ From the military point of view
this was a step in the right direction. It had already
been tried in Spain in the persons of two members
of the same illustrious family ; but it was also the first
step towards the establishment of the military dic-
tatorship, which was destined, after a long agony of
civil wars, to overthrow the liberties of Rome.

Fortune or fraud soon gave Scipio the chance of
dealing a decisive blow. In sight of his winter quar-
ters was the camp of the Carthaginians, under Has-

* Caesar, De Bella Civiliy ii. 24, * Ipse cum equitatu antecedit ad
castra exploranda Comeliana.' Cf. Lucan, Fhars, iv. 656>66o)
riiny, Hist, A at. v. 3 ; Pomponius Mela, i. 7.

* Livy, XXX. 2. ■ Livy, xxx. i,

Z

338 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

drubal, son of Gisco, and at some distance farther lay
that of the Numidians under Syphax. The Cartha*
ginian huts were built of dry wood which had been
collected from the fields, while those of the Numidians,
as their custom was, were made of wattled reeds
thatched with straw. Such materials suggested to
Scipio the way in which they might best be destroyed.
Opening or pretending to open negotiations for peace,
he sent messengers backwards and forwards with
orders to note the shape and the arrangements, the
exits and the entrances, of the hostile camps. This
information obtained, he suddenly broke off the
negotiations, and then, with an easy conscience as it
would seem, set out on his night errand. The wily
Numidian chief was told off to the task which seemed
appropriate to him, and which he had perhaps been
the first to suggest, the burning of the Numidian
camp. The flames spread with the rapidity of light-
ning, and when the Carthaginians hastened to the help
of their allies, their own camp was set on fire by
Scipio behind them. The panic was sudden and uni-
versal, and what the flames spared, the swords of the
Romans, who had been stationed at all the outlets,
cut down. Forty thousand Africans fell the victims
of this not very glorious exploit.^ It was with diffi-
culty that the two generals, Hasdrubal and Syphax,
escaped, the one to Carthage, to keep alive the spirit
of the * Barcine faction ' against the faint-hearted
counsels of the peace-party, which now, perhaps with
reason, might make themselves heard ; the other, to

» Polybius, strangely enough, calls it (xiv. 5. 15) *the most glorious
and extraordinary of Scipio's many glorious exploits ' 1

SCIPIO BURNS THE CARTHAGINIAN CAMPS. 33^

rally the survivors of the slaughter, and to collect new
forces for the defence of the capital.*

Another victory of Scipio followed in the so-called
* Great Plains,' ^ and on the exiled Massinissa was
imposed the congenial task of following up his rival
Syphax, who had deprived him of his hereditary
kingdom. Massinissa's pursuit was as rapid as it
was successful. The Massaesylians were defeated, and
Syphax himself, together with his beautiful wife
Sophonisba, and his capital, Cirta (the fnodern Con-
stantine), which had been built in the most romantic
and impregnable of situations, fell into the conqueror's
hands.^ In times long gone by, so the story went,
Massinissa's heart had been touched by the charms ot
the Carthaginian maiden. Fortune had then thrown
her into the hands of his rival, but now his own turn
was come. He married her on the spot, and when
Scipio, alive to the complications which might follow
from such a marriage, and perhaps jealous of his own
superior rights, bade him dismiss a wife who might
compromise his fidelity to the Romans, he sent her a
cup of poison, *the only present which the bride-
groom could offer to his bride. Let her see to it
that she did nothing unworthy of the daughter of a
Carthaginian general and the wife of two Numidian
kings.' Sophonisba drank off the poison, only re-
marking that her death would have been more
opportune had it not followed so immediately upon
her marriage. Massinissa, so the chroniclers rounded
off the tragic story, was gently rebuked by his Roman

* Polybius, xiv. I-5 ; Livy, xxx. 3-7 ; Appian, Fun, 19-23.

* Polybius, xiv. 8; Livy, xxx. 8. ■ Livy, xxx. II, I2#

Z 2

340 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Mentor for having atoned for one rash act by an-
other ; but he was consoled for the loss of his bride
by the royal title, and by the Roman garments which
Scipio solemnly bestowed upon him.*

It was an honour never before granted by the
proud republic to one who was not a Roman citizen ;
but Massinissa lived long enough abundantly to
justify his privileges. What Hiero had been to the
Romans throughout the. First Punic War and during
the early years of the Second, that Massinissa was to
them during its closing years, throughout the long
agony of the peace which followed it, and in the
short and sharp struggle of the Third. When the
* War of Hannibal ' was over, Massinissa was planted,
as we shall hereafter see, by the Romans as a thorn
in the side of the city with which they professed to
have made peace. He was encouraged to make
aggressions on her mutilated territory, and then to
complain to the Romans if she ventured to defend
herself Carthage was the lamb in the fable. What-
ever excesses she might allege, or whatever the pro-
vocation or the injury she might receive, she knew
that the case was prejudged against her by the wolf,
and that she must meet the lamb's fate.

The fall of Syphax was a great blow to Car-
thage. Her most powerful friend was gone, and his
place was taken by her deadliest foe. Indeed the
whole power of Numidia was now arrayed against her.
In spite of a naval success obtained by the Cartha-
ginians over Scipio's fleet, and the consequent raising
of the siege of Utica,* the peace party now came to the

* Livy, xxix. ^^ ; xxx. 12-15 ; Appian, Pun. 27, 28 ; Zonaras, ix. 13.

* Livy, xxx. 10 ; Appian, Pun, 30.

MASSINISSA AND SYPHAX. 341

front at Carthage. The able Hasdrubal, the son of
Gisco, they condemned to death in his absence — a
sentence passed, ostensibly, no doubt, as a punishment
for his recent failure, but really, as seems probable,
for his previous energy ; * and they then opened
negotiations for peace with Scipio.* The terms
offered by him were lenient ; more lenient, as has
been already pointed out, than those offered by
Regulus fifty years before. He knew that there was
a strong party opposed to him at Rome, and he knew
also that an army which had failed to reduce Utica
would not be likely to capture Carthage by a coup-
de-main.

Ambassadors were sent to Rome to get the terms to
which both parties had agreed in Africa confirmed by
the Roman Senate ; and if Livy may be beUeved — and
he is to a certain extent borne out by what we know
of the state of parties at Carthage — those who were
now in power had the baseness as well as the folly to
try to throw the blame of the war on Hannibal. * He
had crossed the Alps, nay the Ebro itself, against
the express wishes of the Carthaginian Government
So far as they were concerned, the treaty made at the
end of the First Punic War was still in force ! Might
it please the Romans to renew its terms } ' This was
too gross to be listened to even by the Romans.* What
of truth there was in it, that Hannibal had been the
nerve and soul of the war, and that he had not been
properly supported by the home government, was
true enough ; but it did not become that government
to make a boast of it. What was untrue in it, that

' Appiaji, Pun, 24. * Liyx> »«. 16, . • Livy, xxx, 22.

342 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

Hannibal had engaged in the war on his own respon-
sibility and for private purposes of his own, was not
only contradicted by the whole course of the war, but
by what the Romans themselves, in all the bitterness
of their hatred, could not help admitting about their
great antagonist. Anyhow the proposals were sum-
marily rejected, the ambassadors were dismissed with-
out an answer, and Scipio was instructed to press the
war to its natural conclusion.^

But for Carthage one card still remained un-
played. The sons of Hamilcar might be recalled to
help in the hour of her extremity the state which had
done so little to help them, and which now, by the
mouths of one party within it, professed to be ashamed
of having done even that little. And whether it was
the work of the peace party, in the hope that peace
might thereby be made more possible, or of the war
party, who hoped that Hannibal, the genius of war,
might yet strike a blow which would reverse its for-
tunes, the order was sent to the two sons of Hamilcar
to return to Africa. (205 B.C.)

Driven out of Spain by Scipio, Mago, as we have
seen, had crossed to the Balearic Islands, and passing
thence from the harbour which still bears his name,
Port Mahon, into Northern Italy, had taken Genoa,
and during the last two years had been labouring to
organise among the unsubdued and ever-savage Ligu-
rians an active coalition against Rome.^ But it was
too late. In the territory of the Insubrian Gauls, he at
last measured his sword with the Romans. The battle
was well contested, but it was decisive ; and Mago,

. * jLivy, XXX. «3 ; Appian, Pun^ 31. ••Livy, xxviii. 46.

HANNIBAL STANDS AT BAY, 343

■ !■» I ■.-■■■-I. ■■» ■ ■ I ■ ■ I I I ■■ ,M I I ,1.. I ■_■■■■ I .11 I M.- — fc ■■ ■»■■■ IB^— W^ ■ ■■■ #

who had received a dangerous wound in his thigh,
staggered back by night, as best he could, through
that rugged country, to the seacoast. Here he found
the message of recall awaiting him. He set sail at
once, as became a true son of Hamilcar ; but worn out
with anxiety of mind and with agony of body, he
died, perhaps happily for himself, before he hove in
sight of the African shore. ^

A different, but hardly a less tragic fate, awaited his
elder and more famous brother. For four years past,
ever since the battle of Metaurus had shown him
that ultimate success was not to be looked for, Han-
nibal had been compelled to act simply on the defen-
sive. With his sadly thinned army of veterans, and
his Campanian and Bruttian recruits, he had with-
drawn into the neck of land to the south of Italy
which seemed as if it had been made for his purpose.
If it prepared the way for his future retreat to Africa,
it was Italy still, and it still for four years enabled
him to keep his vow, and to make Rome uneasy.
He had withdrawn to the * Land's End,* but he lay
there with his face to the foe, gathering up his strength,
and ever ready to spring upon anyone who should
venture to molest him. The Roman vultures gathered
indeed round the dying lion ; but each, as in the
heyday of his strength, demurred to being the first to
approach him. Invincible as ever in the field — for Po-
lybius tells us expressly that he was * never beaten in
a battle so long as he remained in Italy * ' — Hannibal

* Livy, XXX. 18, 19.

« Polybius, X. 33. I, 2; xv. 11. 7-1 1, iijTT^TOwj yeyovrfTai. Cf.
Plutarch, Comp, Pelop. et Marc, who tells us that * according to Poly-

344 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

had been condemned to see province after province,
and fortress after fortress — Consentia and Metapon-
tum, Locri, and Pandosia — torn from him, till at last
there was nothing left in Italy but the southern
comer of Bruttium and the one fortress of Croton
which he could call his own. Yet all this time,
when he must have been in sore want of provisions,
when reinforcements from Carthage were no longer to
be thought of, when it became more and more clear
that no help could be expected from Philip of Mace-
don, or from his own heroic brother Mago ; when he
had already seen the result of the war registered in
the ghastly head of his other brother Hasdrubal, there
had been no thought of surrender and no whisper of
mutiny in his camp.* Without hope, but without fear,
he had held on there in his solitary strength ; and
now when the order came to leave the land of his
iifteen years' struggle and of his astonishing victories,
like his father and like his brother, he mastered his
feelings and obeyed.

Well knowing that the calumnies of the Romans,
which had assailed him through his life and in the
mid career of his successes, would not fail to follow him
amidst his reverses and in the tomb, Hannibal took
care to leave behind him on some brazen tablets, in
the Temple of Juno on the Lacinian promontory,
an inscription in Punic and Greek which recorded

bius and his party Hannibal was never once beaten by Marcellus, but
continued invincible till he was conquered by Scipio.' Com. Nepos,
Han, v., says the same, ' quamdiu in Italic fuit, nemo ei in acie restitit,
nemo adversus eum post Cannensem fugam in campo castra posuit.'
' Cf. Livy, xxviii. 12.

HANNIBALS RECORD OF THE WAR, 345

the history of his campaign.* This inscription
was seen by Polybius, and it is doubtless to its faith-
ful record that we owe some of the minuter details
which his history reveals to us.* Nor can we believe
that the hero, who was so anxious thus to perpetuate his
fair fame, was at the very same time so careless of it,
and so unlike what we know him to have been at
other periods of his career, as, even in this supreme
bitterness of his soul, to have put to death — as the .
annalists tell us that he did — the Italian soldiers
who refused to accompany him to Africa, in the very
sanctuary which was to preserve the memory of his
exploits.^ Some years before, in a moment of thought-
lessness or of distress, Hannibal had determined to
appropriate the golden column which adorned this
very shrine, and had even bored a hole through it to
convince himself of its real value. But the outraged
goddess appeared to him, we are told, as he lay asleep,
and warned him that, if he carried his purpose out, he
should lose the one eye which remained to him. The
Carthaginian, equally pious and astute, not only left
the column in its place, but caused the figure of
a heifer to be moulded out of the golden filings which
he had bored from it, and devoutly placed it on
its top. This story rests on the authority of Caelius,
who took it from Silenus, the constant companion of
Hannibal.* We can hardly, therefore, doubt its truth,

* The promontory is still called, from the ruins of the temple upon
it, Capo della Colonna. Cf. Livy, xxiv. 3 ; Virg. -^«. iii. 352, —
'attollit se Diva Lacinia contra.'

* Polybius, iii. 33. 18 ; Livy, xxviii. 46,

■ Livy, XXX. 20 ; Diodorus Sic. xxvii. Fr. 6 ; Appian, Han, 58, 59.

* Ciceto, De Div. i. 24.

346 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

and its interest and value in connection with the cheirge
brought against Hannibal by his enemies on this
occasion will be at once apparent. For what act, we
may well ask, would have seemed more certain than
this cruel desecration of a sanctuary which was re-
garded with common reverence by all the inhabitants
of Southern Italy, at once to draw down upon his
own head the divine vengeance which he had so nar-
rowly escaped before, and to ensure the immediate de-
struction by the outraged natives, as soon as he should
have left Italy, of the tablets which he had taken such
pains to engrave ? The charge indeed bears its own re-
futation on the face of it, and may safely be put down
to the impudent fictions of Valerius of Antium, whom
Livy so much mistrusted and so often copied.^

When the Roman Senate heard of their deliver-
ance they once more breathed freely. A five days*
festival was proclaimed, and a crown of grass was
voted to old Fabius, as though it was the Delayer,
and not the remissness of the Carthaginian Govern-
ment, or the heroic perseverance of the whole body of
the Roman state, which had freed Italy from the in-
vader. To Fabius indeed, if to any single Roman,
might justly be given such a meed of honour. His
ancestors, as Livy remarks, had gained greater and
more numerous victories than he. Indeed, it occurs
to us to remark that throughout the war he had not

' *Adeo nuUus mentiendi modus,* Livy says of him in one place
(xxvi. 49); cf. iii. 5 ; xxxvi. 38, where there are similar uncomplimen<
tary remarks. Yet to no other source than to Valerius and his like, can
we, in the face of the statement of Polybius, the first of all authorities,
quoted above (p. 343), refer the reports we find in Livy of the repeated
victories gained by Fabius, by Marcellus, and Nero, &c. over Hannibal.

HANNIBAL RETURNS TO AFRICA. 347

gained a single victory ; but the one fact that he had
been long pitted against Hannibal, and had not been
defeated by him in a pitched battle, might fairly
be set against them all. He died towards the close
of the year by a death which was opportune enough,
for he had lived to see the deliverance for which he
had so long watched and waited.^

* Leaving the country of his enemies with more re-
gret,' says Livy,^ *than many an exile has left his
own,' Hannibal made for the Smaller Leptis, a place
far to the south-east of Carthage.^ The news of his
arrival there at once brought back the war party in
the capital to power. Some Roman transports which
had been driven ashore in a storm were seized by
the excited populace, and hostilities broke out amidst
homilies on the part of the Romans against Cartha-
ginian ill-faith, which, owing to the circumstances
under which they have come down to us, we can
neither refute nor believe.* The Romans knew well
that the scourge which had been withdrawn from
themselves in Italy would fall with redoubled vigour
on their countrymen in Africa, and it is all the more
to be wondered at that they did not think it worth
while to leave to posterity a trustworthy account of
the steps which led up to the final catastrophe.

Hannibal passed the winter at Adrumetum,* the
modern Susa, a town nearer to Carthage than Leptis,
but still considerably to the south-east of it, and then
instead of advancing on the capital — which he must

* Livy, XXX. 26. * Livy, xxx. 20. • Livy, xxx. 25.

* Livy, xxx. 24, 25 ; Appian, Pun, 34, 35.

* Polyb. XV. 5 J Zonaras, ix. 131. 4.

348 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

- ■ ■■■>■!■ ^ — ■ ■ » ' ■ ' - ■ ■ ■ — - — ■-■--■-■ ■ I i». »

have yearned to visit, for he had not seen it since he
was nine years old — he struck across the southern
part of the Carthaginian dominions into Numidia.
There he won some successes over Massinissa, he
formed an alliance with some Numidian chiefs, and
there finally he met or was overtaken by Scipio, who
had moved forward from his head-quarters at Tunis,
plundering and enslaving as he went.

After an abortive negotiation for peace,^ in the
year 202, and probably in the month of October, but
on a day and at a place, which, strange to say, are
unknown, the two great generals met for the first and
last time in the battle which was to decide for cen-
turies the fate of the civilised world.^ The battle of
Zama, like many other battles in history — Arbela,
Hastings, and Blenheim — was fought at some distance
from the place whose name has been united with it.
The battle-field lay probably much to the west of
Zama, near the Upper Bagradas, and not far from a
town called by Livy Naraggara.^ Hannibal drew
up his army in three lines. In the first were his
Ligurian, Gallic, and Moorish mercenaries and the
slingers from the Balearic Isles. In the second,
stood the native Carthaginians and their African
subjects, with some troops which had recently arrived
from Macedon. In the third line were drawn up the
tried soldiers of Hannibal's own army, on whom, if on
no others, he could rely. These last consisted chiefly
of Bruttians. The sixteen years' war had done its
work with the veterans who had crossed the Alps,

* Polybius, xiv. 6-8 ; Livy, xxx. 29-31.

* Cf. Polybius, xv. 9. 5. * Livy, xxx. 29.

BATTLE OF ZAMA. 349

and who had fought at Trasimene and at Cannae.
But the Italians, who had known Hannibal only in
the days of his comparative adversity, seem to have
been as devoted to him as if they had had a share in
winning all his laurels. The cavalry, as usual, were
placed upon the wings, and, in front of the whole,
marched a magnificent array of eighty elephants.^

Scipio, as every Roman general did, drew up his
army in the three lines of hastati, principes,- and triarii.
But, observing the number of the enemy's elephants —
by a happy thought which alone would distinguish him
from the majority of Roman generals, who would
have preferred to be conquered by rule rather than
try to conquer without it — he placed the maniples of
the second and third lines immediately behind those
of the first. Thus, instead of covering his ground
chequer-wise, he left broad lanes through the whole
depth of his army, of which the sagacious elephants,
when they found themselves goaded by the Roman
lances, would be likely to avail themselves for their
escape.^

The plan succeeded ; and the whole array of
elephants, frightened by the blare of the trumpets, .
made the best of their way through these open lanes,
some to the flanks of their own, and others to the
rear of the Roman army, without trampling the legion-
aries to death or even breaking their line of battle,*
Those which escaped to the flanks of the army threw
into confusion their own cavalry, who were already
outnumbered by the Numidians opposed to them.

* Polyb. XV. II ; Livy, xxx. 33.

* Polyb. xiv. 9. 6, 7 ; Livy, xxx. 33.

3SO CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Hannibal thus found on this fatal day that his two
most formidable weapons — his elephants and his ca-
valry — had been turned against himself. Laelius and
Massinissa soon drove the disordered Carthaginian
horsemen from the field ; but the conflict in the centre
was much more stubborn. When Hannibal's first
line gave way, the second tried by blows to drive
them back to the battle. There had not been time
for Hannibal to throw over these raw mercenaries
that commanding spell which, during his long cam-
paigns in Italy, and under circumstances which looked
even more desperate than these, had made desertion
or mutiny, or half-heartedness among their Gallic
or Ligurian countrymen, alike impossible. Some of
them, to the number of eleven hundred, now went
over to the enemy ; but the veterans did their duty
well, and withstood the combined attack of Scipio's
second and third lines. They stood and fought
without flinching, till Laelius and Massinissa, return-
ing from the pursuit of the cavalry, closed in upon
their flanks and rear, and then, like Napoleon's Old
Guard at Waterloo, still without flinching, they fought
and fell*

Twenty thousand of the Carthaginian army had
fallen in the battle. Twenty thousand more had
been taken prisoners, and Hannibal himself escaped,
with a few survivors only, to Adrumetum. He fled,
not because he wished to prolong the campaign, for he
had the magnanimity to confess that he was conquered

^ Polybius, XV. 12-14; Livy, xxx. 33-35; Appian, viii. 41.47;
Zonaras, ix. 14.

TERMS OF PEACE. 351

not only in the battle but in the war ; ^ still less because
he cared for any personal reason to save his own life,
but because he felt that the terror of his name and the
undefined possibilities, which, as in the case of his
father at the close of the First Punic War, the Romans
still attached to it, might enable him to procure better
terms for his unfortunate countrymen. Never did a
general return to his native country, after a long ab-
sence, under a fate more cruel. The hero of a
hundred victories saw his native city for the first time
after his one defeat, but that one a defeat so crush-
ing that it could not but, for the moment, obliterate
the memory of all that had preceded it. But with
true dignity and self-respect, he set himself to ac-
cept the inevitable, and to make what he could of
it. Scipio prepared as though he would besiege the
city, but his heart also inclined to peace. He knew
that the consul was already on his way who might
rob him of much of his well-earned glory, and with
that prudence or that moderation which was habitual
to him, he forbore to push his victory to the bitter
end.^

The terms which he offered were severe enough, and
had the Carthaginians only realised what they involved,
they would surely have asked to be allowed to meet
their fate at once. They were to retain indeed their
own laws and their home domain in Africa ; but they
were to give up all the deserters and prisoners of
war, all their elephants, and all their ships of the line
but ten. They were to wage war, neither in Africa

* Polybius, XV. 15. 3 ; Livy, xxx. 35.

* Polybius, XV. 17 ; Livy, xxx. 36.

352 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

nor outside of it, without the sanction of the Roman
Senate. They were to recognise Massinissa as the
king of Numidia, and, with it, the prescriptive right
which he would enjoy of plundering and annoying
them at his pleasure, while they looked on with their
hands tied, not daring to make reprisals. Finally,
they were to give up all claim to the rich islands of
the Mediterranean and to the Spanish kingdom^ the
creation of the Barcides, of which the fortune of war had
already robbed them ; and thus shorn of the sources
of their wealth, they were to pay within seven years
a war contribution equal to fifty millions sterling !
Henceforward, in fact, they would exist on sufferance
only, and that the sufferance of the Romans. Do
we seem to be reading ancient or modem — very
modern — ^history } Still the terms of peace, heavy
though they were, were as light under the circum-
stances as they could expect ; and Hannibal dragged
down with his own hands from the rostrum an ill-
judging orator who was recommending a continu-
ance of the struggle. The people gave vent to
their indignation at this infringement of their liberty
of speech ; but Hannibal pertinently replied, that
they must forgive him if, after a thirty-six years' ser-
vice in the camp, he had forgotten the manners of the
Forum.^

The terms which had been agreed upon by Scipio
and the Carthaginian Government were referred to
the Roman Senate for their approval ; and ambas-
sadors were sent from Carthage, with Hasdrubal, sur-
named the Kid, the leader of the peace party, and

» Polybius, XV. i8, 19 ; Livy, xxx. 37 ; Appian, Pun. S4-65.

BURNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN FLEET. 353

the bitter opponent of the Barcine family, as their
spokesman, to plead the cause of the conquered. TKe
Romans accepted the conditions, for they felt that
this time the Carthaginians were in earnest, and they
felt also that Hannibal was still at large, and it might
not be well, even then, to drive him to despair.

The conclusion of the peace was celebrated at
Carthage by a cruel sight, the most cruel which the
citizens could have beheld, except the destruction of
the city itself — the destruction of their fleet. Five
hundred vessels, the pride and glory of the Phoenician
race, the symbol and the seal of the commerce, the
colonisation, and the conquests of this most imperial
of Phoenician cities, were towed out of the harbour
and were deliberately burned in the sight of the
citizens.^ In the days of the greatest prosperity of
Carthage if any signal reverse happened to her — if, for
instance, a storm at sea destroyed a portion of her
navy, and so touched her in that on which she most
prided herself, the command of the seas — the whole
state would go into mourning, and the huge walls of
the city would themselves be draped in black.^ It is a
strange and touching custom, and the mention of it
here may, perhaps, better enable us to picture to our-
selves the feelings of the discrowned queen of the seas.
Scipio now set sail for Italy, and, landing at Lilybaeum,
made his way leisurely towards Rome through the
cities and the provinces which he had freed from the
invader, and which fondly hailed him as their
deliverer.^

* Livy, XXX. 43. Diod. Sic. xix. 106.

* Livy, xxx. 45.

A A

354 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

He had delivered them, but from what and to
what end ? He had delivered them from the iinme-»
diate scourge of foreign war ; but it remained to be
seen how far they would be gainers thereby. It re-
mained to be seen, now that their great rival in the
western Mediterranean was put out of the way,
whether Rome would visit the Greek and the Sicilian,
the Apulian and the Campanian towns, which had
been guilty of coquetting with the invader, with that
condign vengeance which she had already wreaked
on the unhappy Capua and Tarentum ; whether she
would hand them over to the more lingering oppres-
sion of Roman magistrates and tax-gatherers ; or
whether, throwing off the narrow municipal concep-
tions in which she had grown up, she would rise to.
the imperial dignity which circumstances had forced
upon her. In other words, it remained to be seen
whether Rome would govern the states which were
already, or were hereafter to be, enrolled in her vast
Empire, in their own interests, encouraging, as far as
was consistent with her own safety, their national life,
developing their resources, giving them a liberty which
was not a license, and a security which was not a
solitude. If Rome rose to this, her true dignity, we
can hardly regret in the interests of humanity that
Hannibal's enterprise ended as it did. But if her con-
duct was the reverse, or nearly the reverse, of all this,
we may at least be allowed to question, as we have
already hinted, what most historians have laid down
as an axiom too self-evident to be worth discussing,
whether it was for the good of the human race that
Rome should not only out-top but should utterly ex-

END OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR 355

tirpate her ancient rival. We may believe, on the
whole, in the survival of the fittest, and that arms
generally come to him who can best handle them ;
but it is open to us to regret that even the less fit
were not allowed to survive as well. There was surely
room on the shores of the Mediterranean and on the
Ocean beyond for the Phoenician as well as the
Roman civilisation ; and the worst excesses of the
Romans, the perfidy and the brutality of their wars
in Spain, their grinding and oppressive system of
taxation, the destruction of Corinth the eye of Greece,
their civil wars themselves, might have been miti-
gated or postponed, if they could not have been al-
together prevented, by the salutary knowledge that
they had powerful rivals on the other side of the Me-
diterranean who would not allow them to be judge
and jury, council, criminal, and executioner all in
one.

A A 4

356 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

CHAPTER XIX.

CARTHAGE AT THE MERCY OF ROME.

(201-150 B.c)

Deterioration of Roman character —Condition of Italy — Condition of
Rome — Condition of Roman provinces — Story of Lucius Flamininus
— Story of Sergius Galba — Rapid conquest of the East — State of
Eastern world — Summary of Roman conquests in the East — Reforms
introduced by Hannibal at Carthage — Romans demand his sur-
render — His exile and wanderings — His schemes, his sufferings,
and his death — Roman fear and hatred of him — Credibility of the
anecdotes about him — Humour of Hannibal — Anecdotes of him
while at the court of Antiochus and during his wandering life — He
founds Artaxata and Prusa — His personal characteristics — Death
of Scipio — Treatment of Carthage by Romans and Massinissa —
Delenda est Carthago.

The fifty years which passed between the end of the
Second and the outbreak of the Third Punic War were
years in which Rome advanced with extraordinarily
rapid strides towards the empire of the world ; but
they witnessed also the incipient decay of all that
was best in the Roman character. Already in the
Second Punic War we have seen indications that the
Golden Age of Rome was passing away. Whatever
the heroic qualities which the long struggle called
forth, we feel that the stern simplicity, the simple
faith, the submission to law which formed the ground-

DETERIORATION OF THE ROMANS. 357

work of the Roman character, and had marked, -at all
events, the dealings of Romans with each other, are
not what they have been ; and now, when the strain
of the war is over, and the victorious city has to
meet new problems and to face new dangers, we find
that except in the one point of her material strength,
and her appliances for further conquest, she is un-
equal to the emergency.

An emergency indeed it was ! Three hundred
thousand Italians had fallen in the field ; three hun-
dred towns had been destroyed ; to the North the
Gauls and the Ligurians were still unsubdued ; in
Central Italy, the Campanians, the Apulians, and the
Samnites who had long dallied with Hannibal were
awaiting their future in ill-concealed anxiety ; while
in the extreme South, the Bruttians, who had clung to
him to the last, abandoned themselves to their fate in
dull despair. The Italian yeomen, who had never
wavered in their attachment to Rome, torn from their
homes for years, and demoralised by the camp, were
unable or unwilling to settle down into the quiet
routine of agricultural life. They went as settlers to
those disaffected towns which Rome, according to her
practice, selected as new military colonies, or were con-
tent to swell the city rabble, which now began to rise
into importance and was kept in good humour by
largesses of corn, or by cruel and degrading public
spectacles. Their farms passed into the hands of
capitalists, and were cultivated by foreign slaves whom
the frequent wars with the half-subdued provinces
brought in shoals to Rome. * Sardinians for sale,'
was the sorry jest which rose to people's lips when they

358 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

saw a batch of these wretched creatures landed at Ostia;
or exposed for what little they could fetch in the
Roman Forum. * The more slaves, the more enemies/
was the grim proverb which forced itself on their minds
in all its stem reality, when they awoke to the danger^
which it was then too late either to prevent or to cure.
The rich arable lands of Italy fell back, as might be
expected under such keeping, into pasture ; and half-
naked slaves tended herds of cattle where Roman con-
suls or dictators had been content to plough and dig
before them. When the slaves asked their masters for
clothes to cover them, they were met by the suggestion,
half question and half answer, whether the travellers
who passed through their solitudes were wont to pass
naked }

In Rome itself the old aristocracy, which, it must
be admitted, with all its faults, had been, on the whole,
an aristocracy of merit, had given place to a new
nobility of wealth, who were as exclusive, and cer-
tainly were not more far-sighted or more public-
spirited, than their predecessors. Rule was no longer
looked upon as its own reward. It was valued for what
it brought, and high office lost half its dignity when
it was won by a reckless display of wealth, or was
used as a means of acquiring more. Religion was no
longer the simple and childlike faith of the early
commonwealth, but tended to become an affair of
titles and of priests, of auguries and of ceremonies — of
ceremonies which became more stringent and more
vexatious exactly in proportion as they were felt to
be less real.

Beyond the confines of Italy Proper, Rome was

CONDITION OF ROMAN PROVINCES. 359

mistress indeed of the four provinces which she had
torn from Carthage in her fifty years* war, of Hither
and Further Spain, of Sicily and Sardinia ; but of
these, Sicily alone was unlikely to give her further
trouble ; and that, not because she was well-affected,
but simply because she was exhausted. Sardinia
supplied Rome with the living chattels which were
to be so perilous a property ; while Spain entailed
upon her a yet more disastrous heritage of petty
wars — wars incessantly ended and incessantly re-
newed ; wars waged on the part of the Romans with
a baseness and a cruelty such as have characterised few
wars before or since. The wholesale murder of a tribe
which had submitted, and the assassination of a for-
midabte but honourable foe, v/ere the weapons with
which the Roman generals managed to retain their
hold over their Spanish provinces. What kind of
redress the subject or half-subject populations might
expect to get, if appeal were made from the Roman
generals to the Roman Government, will be suffi-
ciently apparent if we relate two incidents. They are
well known, but are too characteristic to be omitted
here.

L. Flamininus, brother of the conqueror of Ma-
cedon, and consul in the year 192, happened to leave
Rome for the province of Cisalpine Gaul just before
the gladiatorial games came on. In his retinue was a
beautiful boy to whom he was attached. The boy,
old before he was young in cruelty and in profligacy,
complained of the pleasure which he had lost. A Boian
chief who had taken refuge in the Roman camp hap-
pening just then to come in, the consul stabbed him with

36o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

his own hand that his favourite might feast his eyes
on his dying agonies. The foul deed passed un-
noticed and uncensured at the time ; but M. Porcius
Catp, the most honest, and in many ways the most
original of Roman statesmen, had the courage as
censor, eight years afterwards, to strike the name of
the murderer from off the roll of the Senate. The
senators could not reinstate him by force ; but they
showed their appreciation of the character of their
brother senator by inviting him to retain his sena-
torial seat in the theatre.*

The other incident we will take from the wars in
Spain which are fertile enough in them. The Lusita-
nian War had just been terminated by the submis-
sion of the insurgents. The Praetor, Sergius -Galba,
invited them in the kindest language to meet him in
three several divisions that he might redress their
grievances and assign them new lands. They came
unsuspectingly, when Galba at once fell upon and
massacred them together with their wives and children,
in cold blood. The few survivors were sold into
slavery. On his return to Rome the same honest Cato,
now in his extreme old age, who, forty-five years be-
fore, had himself crushed a Spanish rising with no
over scrupulous hand,^ attempted to bring the mis-
creant to justice ; but Galba produced his weeping
wife and children in court, and was acquitted by the
compassionate judges.^ Happily for justice, however,
one shepherd warrior had escaped the treacherous

* Livy, xxxix. 42 ; Cicero, De Senec, 12 ; Plutarch, Cato, 17.

* See Liv}', xxxiv. passim.

* Livy, Epit. xlix, ; Appian, vi. 59-60 ; Cicero, Brtitus, 23.

FLAMININUS AND GALEA, 35c

massacre, and he lived to take ample but honourable
vengeance for his country's wrongs. Viriathus de-
feated consul after consul in the open field, till at
length the Romans bribed his friends, and got rid of
him by assassination.

We turn with a sense of relief from this picture of
the internal corruption of Rome, and from the dupli-
city and savagery of her dealings with the brave
nations of the West, to the story of her brilliant con-
quests in the more effeminate East. We can but
glance at them ; for, though they fall within the period
of which this work treats, they have little direct bear-
ing on the great drama which is its special subject,
and which is now hastening on to its melancholy
catastrophe.

The Eastern world was still strewn with the frag-
ments, each a colossus in itself, into which the gigantic
empire of Alexander the Great had been broken up,
as soon as the masterhand was withdrawn. Like a
meteor, Alexander had shot down upon the East and
had passed from province to province, laying low im-
memorial empires and taking virgin fortresses, yet
everywhere building where he had thrown down, se-
lecting sites for new cities which have stood the test
of twenty centuries, and planting, even in the remotest
East, the seeds of Greek culture and civilisation which
twenty centuries of barbarism have not been able
altogether to obliterate. But like a meteor also, the
political fabric founded by him had vanished. Among
these fragments of his empire, each an empire in
itself, and each at war with almost all the others,
Rome was now to play her easy part ; and it was

362 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

ft

the ancestral kingdom of the conqueror of the East
himself which was to be the first to feel the weight of
the new power which had arisen in the West.

It was not Rome but Macedon which had been,
in the first instance, the aggressor. It may be indeed
that Philip king of Macedon saw clearly that when
Carthage should have been disposed of, his own turn
would come, and that it would be wise to choose his
own time for the * struggle for life ' which he knew
could not be altogether averted. Anyhow, he had
formed an alliance offensive and defensive with Han-
nibal after Cannae,* and the Romans, already over-
matched as they were, had expected day by day to
hear of his landing in Italy. Had he done so about
the time when Tarentum fell into Hannibal's hands,
Rome could hardly have weathered the storm. But
Philip's bark was worse than his bite. With miserable
procrastination he neglected to send aid to the Cartha-
ginians when it might have turned the scale, and then
with a zeal which was equally ill-timed, he had sent
four thousand men to fight by their side at Zama,
when all hope was gone.*-* Thus, for fourteen years
past, if there had not been continuous war, still less
had there been peace between the neighbouring na-
tions. When the Second Punic War was over, the bulk
of the citizens fondly hoped that they would be, for
a time at least, at peace with all the world ; and
only when the Senate pointed out to them that if they
did not go against Philip, Philip would come against
them, and that those who were just freed from Han-
nibal might live to see a second Hannibal in Italy, were

* Livy, xxiii. 33. ^ Livy, xxx. 26. 33. 42.

ROMAN CONQUESTS IN THE EAST. 363

the reluctant people induced again to take up arms.
Philip indeed was already planning alliances, or
making conquests which would one day render him
really formidable ; and thus Rome, triumphant in the
West, found herself, in some sense in spite of herself,^
involved in that career of Eastern conquest and ag-
gression which was not to be stopped, hardly even to
receive a check, till the Mediterranean should become
a Roman lake, and the power of Rome should be felt
on the Nile as on the Tagus, on the Euphrates as on
the Danube.

It does not fall within the scope of this work to
trace in detail the steps by which Rome acquired
this universal supremacy ; to show how Philip, \yho
had scornfully remarked that the Roman general
* thought he might do anything with Macedon be-
cause he was a Roman, and that if war was what he
wanted, war he should have,' found in a few short
years, when the Macedonian phalanx first mea-
sured its strength with the Roman legion in the open
field at Cynoscephalae, that the Roman general was
not far wrong, and, being thus driven to sue for peace,
was able, out of all his conquests or dependencies, to
retain only his hereditary kingdom ; how the Greeks,
delivered from the Macedonians, received at the
hands of the Romans their nominal Jiberty, and
greeted with short-sighted acclamations the Phil-
hellenic Flamininus who was in fact giving them only
a change of masters ; how ' the fetters of Greece,' ^

' See Mommsen, ii. p. 229 and passim.

* So Philip called the three fortresses of Corinth, Chalcis, and Deme-
trias ; see Livy, xxxii. 37.

364 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

first adjusted by Philip, were now riveted on that
unhappy country by a firmer hand, and how its petty
cities and blustering confederations, the degenerate
representatives of those states to whom the world
owes Hellenic art and culture, after being allowed
for a brief space to air their importance and their
imbecility, settled down peaceably under the Roman
protectorate, and avenged themselves by corrupting by
their manners, or subduing by their arts, those whom
they could not meet in arms ; how Antiochus the Se-
leucid, the successor, as he fondly thought, of the king
of kings who rejoiced in the self-assumed name of the
Great, was driven by the Romans first out of Greece
and then out of Asia Minor, eighty thousand of his
Asiatic troops flying like chaff before the onset of
less than half that number of Roman legionaries at
Magnesia ; how the Roman province, as it was hence-
forward proudly called, of * Asia,' was carved out of
his dominions, with puppet monarchs — Eumenes of
Pergamus, Ariarathes of Cappadocia, and Prusias
of Bithynia — clustering round it, and humbly regis-
tering the decrees of the conquering Republic, while
even the hordes of Gallic invaders learned to stop
their ravages, or at least to keep at a respectful dis-
tance from her all-powerful arm ; how the grand
schemes of a greater than Antiochus the ' Great,' now
a friendless exile at his court, were crushed, not so
much by the wisdom or courage as by the good
fortune of Rome which found her best ally in the
jealousy and the incapacity of the empty-headed mo-
narch who flattered himself that he was Hannibal's
protector ; how the Egyptian Ptolemy himself became

HANJSilBAL AT CARTHAGE, 365

the ward of Rome, and the chief naval power of the
Eastern Mediterranean was saved from the ambitious
schemes of Macedon and Syria only by the upstart
naval power of Rome in the West ; how, lastly, by
the defeat of Perseus at Pydna, and the taking of
Corinth by Mummius, Macedon and Greece disap-
peared for ever as independent powers from history,
and became part and parcel of the Roman Empire.
All these events, and many more, are crowded into
the fifty years of existence which it still suited Rome
by a cruel kindness to allow to her Carthaginian rival.
But they belong to the general current of Roman
history, rather than to that special episode of which
this book treats.

The year 146, which witnessed the fall of Corinth,
witnessed also, by a strange coincidence, the destruc-
tion of Carthage ; and to the chain of events which led
directly up to that catastrophe we now turn.

Beaten in the war by his cruel destiny, Hannibal
made the best of his altered circumstances. He had
lived many lives in what he had achieved and suffered ;
but he was still comparatively a young man, and he set
himself, as though he had been born to be a statesman,
to reform those abuses in the state which had done so
much to mar his patriotic aims. His apology for his
ignorance of the manners of the forum was hardly
needed. He triumphantly refuted the accusations
which the peace party were impudent enough, or base
enough, to bring against him, that he had spared
Rome, and had appropriated to his own use the public
money ! ^ Whether by the help of his veterans, or by

* Zonaras, ix. 14.

366 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the voice of the citizens, he was appointed Shofete,
or chief magistrate ;^ and he used his power to over-
throw the narrow and selfish oligarchy whose strength
lay in the council of * the hundred judges.' Hence-
forward this council was to be filled up, not as here-
tofore, by co-optation, but, in part at least, by free
annual election.* Lastly, Hannibal reformed the
financial system, made those who had thriven on the
plunder of the treasury disgorge their ill-gotten gains,
and applied the proceeds to the payment of the war
indemnity. So admirable were his measures, that at
the end of thirteen years his successors were able to
offer to pay up the whole of the instalments of the
forty millions due to Rome, and that without imposing
any additional taxes on the subjects of Carthage.*

These reforms stirred up a nest of hornets round
the ears of their great author, and his new enemies
joined his old ones in denouncing his projects to the
Romans. Rome, indeed, hardly needed such an in-
vitation ; she had made peace with Carthage, but not
with Hannibal. If she no longer feared the city, she
feared one of its simple citizens ; and in spite of the
protest of Scipio Africanus, Hannibal's noble-minded
foe, an embassy was sent to demand the surrender of
the man whose bare existence disturbed her equani-
mity.^ From the crowning disgrace of complying
with this demand Hannibal saved his fellow-citizens

» Livy, xxxiii. 46 ; Com. Nepos, Hannib, 7. 4 ; Justin, xxxi. 2. 6 :
*principem rerum ac turn temporis consulem.*

* Livy, xxxiii. 46, * Ut in singulos annos judices legerentur.*
' Livy, xxxiii. 46, 47.

* Livy, xxxiii. 47 ; Val. Max. iv. i. 6 ; Zonaras, ix. 18.

HANNIBAL AND ANTIOCHUS, 367

by going into voluntary exile. The greatest of the
Phoenicians first visited Tyre, the cradle of his race,
and passed thence to Ephesus, whither, as chance '
would have it, Antiochus had gone before him,^ that
he might prepare for war with Rome. He was
received with the highest honours ; and, striking
while the iron was hot, he asked the great king to
place at his disposal a small fleet and army. If this
boon were granted him, he undertook to sail to Car-
thage ; to renew the struggle with Rome in Africa ;
thence once more to cross to Italy, and there meeting
Antiochus himself — who was to advance overland and
draw fresh contingents as he advanced from Macedon
and Greece — to bear down with him on their common
enemy.^

It was a magnificent scheme, and one which did
not seem altogether impossible of realisation, for just
then a general rising in Spain gave the Romans
enough to do in the West alone. But it was proposed
to deaf ears. In vain did Hannibal reveal, perhaps
for the first time in his life, the secret which had been
the mainspring of his achievements, the story of his
early vow.^ The courtiers were jealous of the lonely
exile, and the great king himself had no mind to be
told by a suppliant and a refugee what his interests
or his duty called for, or, if he was told, to do it.^
Against his own urgent entreaties, Hannibal was

' Livy, xxxiii. 49.

* Livy, xxxiv. 60 ; Justin, iii. 31 ; Appian, Syr, 7.

' Polyb. iii. 11 ; Livy, xxxv. 19; Com. Nepos, Hannibal^ 2.
(See above, p. 184.)

* Livy, xxxv. 42 ; Zonaras, ix, 18.

368 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

carried into Greece, in the wake of the S>Tian army
there to be asked for fresh advice, which Antiochus
took care again ostentatiously to reject* When his
warnings turned out true, he was carried back into
Asia, and Antiochus having, as it would seem, nothing
for the greatest soldier of his age to do by land, sent
him off to sea to escort some ships from Phoenicia.
The small armament was met, as might have been
expected, by the large Rhodian navy, and was over-
powered in an engagement which took place off Sid^.
Hannibal himself fought well and escaped to Ephesus
just in time to see the huge force which, as Antiochus
imagined, was to sweep the Romans out of Asia.*
This force was itself annihilated at Magnesia, and the
conquerors demanded, as one of the conditions of
peace, that Hannibal should be surrendered to them.'
Once more he anticipated the demand. He fled to
Crete, and thence returning to Asia, wandered from
land to land, till at last he found refuge with Prusias,
the petty king of Bithynia. There he lived for some
years ; but even there the Roman fear, or hatred,
pursued him ; and at last, at a place called Libyssa,
the Phoenician hero disappointed his implacable
enemies, who were headed, it is sad to say, by no less a
person than Flamininus, the conqueror of Macedon,
in the only way which was now left to him, by taking
the poison which, as the story goes, he used to carry
about with him concealed in a ring.'* The oracle which

' Livy, xxxvi. 7-8.

* Livy, xxxvii. 8. 23, 24 ; Corn. Nep. Hannibal^ 8. 4.

■ Polyb. xxi. 14. 7 ; xxii. 26. ii ; Livy, xxxviii.*38 ; Justin, xxxii.

4. 3-

* Livy, xxxix. 51 ; Corn. Nep. Hannibaly x. 2 ; Justin, xxxii. 4. 8.

DEATH OF HANNIBAL. 369

had foretold that * Libyssian soil should one day give
shelter to Hannibal,' ^ was fulfilled, not by his return in
his old age to his native country, but by his death in
this remote corner of the Sea of Marmora, and for
centuries afterwards a huge mound of earth was
shown to travellers which was called * the tomb of
Hannibal/ ^

So died the last and the greatest of Hapiilcar's
sons ; and it may be doubted— or may we not rather
say, after such study as we have been able to give to
their lives and actions, that it hardly admits of doubt
— ^whether the whole of history can furnish another
example of a father and a son, each cast in so truly
heroic a mould, each so worthy of the other, and each
proving so brilliantly, in his own person, through a
lifelong struggle with fate, that success is in no way
necessary to greatness ?

Many anecdotes have come down to us respecting
the last few years of Hannibal's life — the years, that is,
of his exile and humiliation. Few of these, perhaps,
are thoroughly authenticated or rise to the dignity of
the man, as, even with our imperfect lights, we have
seen him ; but we are fain, before withdrawing our
eyes altogether from his commanding figure, to take
a glance at anything which may probably, or even
possibly, shadow forth the truth respecting him.

The anecdotes told of Hannibal's last years fall
naturally into three classes. There are those which are

' Appian, Syr. xi. ; Al$v(r(ra Kp{f^€i $u\os ^Ayyifiov Zifias. Cf.
Plutarch, Flamininusy 20; Zonaras, ix. 2i.'

2 Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 43 ; * fuit et Libyssa oppidum ubi nunc
Hannibalis tantum tumulus.*

B B

370 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

transparent fictions — the product of Roman vanity or
malice, or of the mere love of the absurd ; such, for
instance, as that which tells us of the personal inter-
view of Hannibal and his conqueror at the court of
Antiochus, and the delicate yet fulsome compliment
said to have been paid by him to the generalship o!
Scipio at the expense of his own.^ From such stories •{

as these we turn away with impatience and disgust ,1

There are others which can hardly have been in- |

vented, and which, it is probable enough, are strictly
true ; while others again — and these the most nume-
rous class — hover on that borderland between fact
and fiction, on which it is the privilege or the fate of
great men, when once they have been removed from
the scene of their labours, simply because they have
been so great, to move. The substratum of such
stories is doubtless true, and the accessories have
gathered round them by a process of accretion which,
in an illiterate age, and perhaps in some ages which
are not illiterate, is as strictly natural as are the
various feelings, which contact with a commanding
character calls forth in differently constituted minds.
They are the fundamental feelings of human nature :
envy, jealousy, or fear deepening into a passionate
and unreasoning hatred ; admiration kindling into
enthusiasm, and enthusiasm, again, rising at times
into something which is even akin to worship.

Plutarch ^ tells us incidentally of a humorous re-
mark made by Hannibal just before the battle of
Cannae, which, being caught up by the bystanders,
spread rapidly from mouth to mouth, till the whole

> Livy, XXXV. 19 ; Appian, x. 10. * Plutarch, Fabius^ 15.

HUMOUR OF HANNIBAL. 371

army, with its Babel of races and of languages, pealed
with one hearty and continuous laugh. Hannibal
had ridden with a few attendants "to a rising bit of
ground that he might view the enemy who were now
drawn up in order of battle. One of his followers
named Gisco, a Carthaginian noble, remarked that
the number of the enemy was very astonishing.
'There is something,' replied Hannibal gravely, 'which
is still more astonishing.' 'What is that.^' asked Gisco
with equal gravity, but doubtless with intensified
anxiety. 'Why, that in allthat host,' rejoinedj Hannibal,
' there is not a single man whose name is^ Gisco.' The
joke does not read to us like a very good one ; perhaps
we could hardly expect that it would, when we know
so little of the decorous personage at whose expense
the laugh was raised, and when the story has been
divested of those accompaniments of time and place,
of gesture and manner, above all of that divinum
aliquidy that indescribable something, which is the
very essence of humour, and which is the sufficient
justification, even for that 'inextinguishable laughter'
of the immortal gods at a very ordinary occurrence
which so scandalised the religious instincts of Plato.
Anyhow the incident was not without its material
value ; for Hannibal's men, feeling that their general
would not have uttered a jest at such a time unless
he was in good heart as to the result, went into
battle with redoubled confidence.

No other illustration has been preserved to us,
during the period of his long ^struggle in Italy, of that
gift of humour, that genuine under-current of the soul,
of which, in spite of thesilence of ourhistorians, we can-

B B 2

372 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

not believe that anyone so great as Hannibal could have
been wholly destitute. But one or two of the later
anecdotes of which we speak do give us some idea
of his humour on its drier or more serious side, the
only side to which he would be likely to give free
play in his sadly altered circumstances. ^

During his residence at Ephesus Hannibal was
invited by his hosts to listen to a discourse of Phor-
mio, the philosopher. Phormio discoursed for seve-
ral hours on military affairs in general, and on the
duty of a commander-in-chief in particular. His
audience was enthusiastic, and turning to Hannibal,
who had been listening patiently throughout, asked
him triumphantly what he thought of their philoso-
pher } * I have seen many dotards in my time,' said
Hannibal, * but verily this is the greatest dotard of
them all.' ^

On another occasion, when Hannibal returned, as
we have seen, to Ephesus from his unsuccessful
sea battle, he found assembled there an enormous
army, with the most magnificent and diversified equip-
ments, which Antiochus had gathered together from
e\ery corner of his dominions, confident that it would
sweep the Romans out of Asia.^ The great king, his
heart swelling with pride, turned to the Carthaginian
exile, who had dissuaded him from the attempt, and
asked him whether he did not think these were
enough for the Romans ? 'Yes,' answered Hannibal
grimly, foreseeing the result, * enough for the Romans,
however greedy they may be.'

' See the account of Hannibal's grim laughter, Livy, xxx. 45.

* Cic. Oraf. ii. 18. ' Polyb. xxxi. 3, 4 ; Livy, xxxvii. 39, 40.

ANECDOTES OF HANNIBAL, 373

Other anecdotes illustrate the thousand shifts and
devices of which Hannibal was a master, and to
which his enemies, in the endeavour to salve their
wounded pride, were fain to attribute so large a por-
tion of his successes. Fraud is the force of weak
natures ; and it was not often in the mid career of his
conquests that the mighty Carthaginian needed to
have recourse to any other weapon than his own con-
summate military skill. But when, as now, force was
no longer to be thought of, it is little wonder if the
homeless fugitive availed himself to the full of the
other weapons which Nature had so prodigally placed
within his hands. The Roman commissioners who
had been sent to Carthage to demand his extradition,
he put off their guard by the unconcerned manner in
which he walked about the city in their society, and
then, like Samson or the Circassian Shamil, escaped
from them just when they thought he was within
their grasp. ^ The Tyrian shipmasters of the island
of Cercina, who he feared might be planning to
carry him back to Carthage, and hand him over to
the Romans, he invited to partake of his hospitality.
The banquet was spread beneath an awning made
of the mainsails of their own ships which he had
craftily borrowed from them for the purpose, and
when his guests were carousing he slipped out, and
was well off in his flight to Syria before any one
of them could rig his ship and follow him.^ The
Cretans, whose cupidity was aroused by his wealth,
he deceived by a simple stratagem. He filled some
earthen jars with lead, and covering them over with

' Livy, xxxiii. 47. ^ Livy, xxxiii. 48.

374 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

gold and silver, deposited them as a sacred trust in
the Temple of Diana, while his real wealth he con-
veyed away concealed in some hollow brazen images,
which he carried with him as works of art of little
value.^ By a similar stratagem he managed to dis-
cover, just before a naval battle, what his enemies
in vain attempted to hide from him, the vessel which
carried Eumenes, the puppet king ojf Pergamus.
Unable to vent his hatred on the Romans themselves,
he poured out, in the engagement which ensued, all
its vials on Rome's craven and obsequious ally.
' Fight ' — so might have run the watchword which
passed along from ship to ship — ' fight neither with
small nor great, but only with the King of Pergamus.' *
Indignant at the treatment he received from
Antiochus, Hannibal on one occasion took refuge with
Artaxias, one of his revolted satraps, in a remote
comer of Armenia ; and it is to the constructive genius
of the exiled Carthaginian that Artaxata itself, the
historic capital of Armenia, is said by Strabo and
Plutarch to owe its origin.^ Prusa, the modern Broussa,
a place which has for centuries played a considerable
part in Eastern history, and is perhaps destined,
owing to recent events in the East, to be still more
important in the immediate future, is, curiously
enough, said, in like manner, to have been founded by
the great Carthaginian while he dwelt under the pro-
tection of the miserable Prusias of Bithynia.* It is

* Com. Nepos, Hannibal, 9 ; Justin, xxxii. 4. 4.

* Com. Nepos, Hannibal, 11. 1-4.

' Strabo, xi. p. 528 ; Plutarch, Lncullus, 31.

* Pliny, Nat, Hist. v. 43; * Prusa ab Hannibale sub Olympocondita,*

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HANNIBAL, 375

interesting to see Hannibal here, if here only, taking
his place as the supposed founder of mighty cities,
among the great wall-builders and wonder-workers of
Eastern history and legend : Nimrod and Nebu-
chadnezzar, Sesostris and Semiramis, Hercules and
Samson, Zal and Rustum, Solomon and *the two-
horned Iskander.' These anecdotes may be taken
for what they are worth ; but it seems undesirable
to omit them altogether.

Other personal characteristics of Hannibal or
incidents in his life — his continence, his simple fare,
his sleep * so aery, light, on pure digestion bred ; ' his
power of enduring the extremes of heat and cold, of
hunger and fatigue ; his dreams, and their influence
over him ; the simplicity of his dress as contrasted
with the splendour of his arms and of his horse ; his
skill in boxing and in running ; his lessons in Greek,
and the ease with which he was able to speak and
to write it ; his manoeuvres and disguises ; his in-
fluence over men ; his patience and tenacity of pur-
pose — what Spenser so well calls his stubbornness,
the * stubborne Hanniball ; ' ^ his marriage with a
Spanish maiden, and his discovery of Spanish mines ;
his watch-towers erected along the coasts of Africa
and Spain — these and other characteristic facts
we have to gather, as best we may, from stray
hints, scattered up and down through Greek and
Roman literature, from an epithet here, an anecdote
there, from an undesigned coincidence or an unde-
signed discrepancy ; but, coming to us though they
do in so unsatisfactory a shape, they yet help us, in

* Faery Queene, v. 49.

376 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIAAS.

some measure, to clothe with flesh and blood the
figure of the hero whose general outlines seem, per-
haps, only more gigantic by reason of the mist through
which we are compelled to contemplate it They en-
able us to feel that the noble line of his African
fellow-countryman, ' I am a man, and nothing that is
human do I think alien to me,* may, in spite of his
almost more than human proportions, and in spite of
the deficiency of our materials, be, in its measure, ap-
plied also to him.

In the same year with Hannibal died his great
rival, Scipio Africanus,^ the victim of a like reverse of
fortune. Like Hannibal, the victor of Zama had tried
his hand at politics, but, like many other great generals
who have followed his example, in politics he does not
seem to have been at home. He longed for literary
repose, and when the tide of popular favour turned
against him, he retired into a kind of voluntary exile
at Liternum. * Ungrateful country/ he cried with
his last breath, * thou shalt not have my ashes.' ^

The great Carthaginian leader was gone, but
something of his handy-work still remained in the
prosperity which his reforms had secured for his native
city, in spite of the ever-increasing depredations of
Massinissa. The Second Punic War had hardly been
concluded, and the terms of peace agreed to, when
that wily Numidian, lord, by the favour of Rome,
of the dominions of Syphax as well as of his own,*
began to justify his position by encroaching on the

* Justin, xxxii. 4. 9.

2 Livy, xxxviii, 56 ; Val. Max. v. 3. 2.

' Polyb. XV. 18. 5 ; Livy, xxx. 44.

DELENDA EST CARTHAGO, 377

Emporia to the south-east of Carthage. This was the
richest part of the Phoenician territory in Africa ; it
contained the oldest Phoenician colonies, iand had be-
longed to Carthage by a prescription of at least 300
years. The Carthaginians, as by treaty bound, ap-
pealed to Rome for protection ; and Scipio, the best
judge of its provisions, as well as one of the most
honourable of Roman citizens, went over to Africa to
decide the matter. But he decided nothing, and Mas-
sinissa was left in possession of his plunder.* This
led to fresh encroachments on the other side of the
Carthaginian territory along the river Bagradas, and
these again to fresh commissions from Rome, which
always ended in the same way.^ At last the tram-
pled worm turned on its oppressor ; but fortune was
on the side of the chartered brigandage of Massinissa.
Hasdrubal, at the head of the patriotic party, was
completely defeated, and Carthage itself was in
danger. The Carthaginians, by neglecting to ask
leave of Rome to defend themselves, had at length
given the Romans the very pretext which they wanted
for interfering actively and giving them the coup de
grdce? Already before this a new commission had been
sent out with old Marcus Cato at its head. It proved
to be an evil day for Carthage. The Censor had passed
through the rich districts which still remained to her.
He had been amazed at the wealth, the population,
and the resources of the city, which he had believed

* Polybius, xxxii. 2; Livy, xxxiv. 62; cf. xl. 17 and- 3 1 ; Appian,
Pun, 67.

' Livy, xlii. 23, 24 ; Epit. xlvii. ; Appian, Pun, 68.
' Livy, Epit. xlviii. ; Appian, Pun, 70-73,

378 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

was crushed ; and he returned home with his narrow
mind thoroughly impressed with the belief that if
Rome was to be saved, Carthage must be destroyed.
Cato brought to the consideration of every subject a
mind thoroughly made up upon it No one ever rea-
soned him out of an opinion he had formed. He ex-
hibited in the Senate some figs as remarkable for
their freshness as their size ; and telling the admiring
senators that they grew in Carthaginian territory
only three days* sail from Rome, he ended his speech
that day, and every speech which he delivered in* the
Senate afterwards, whatever the subject under de-
bate, with the memorable words — Carthage must be
blotted out.^

lutarch, Cato^ 27 ; Appian, Pun, 69 ; Floras, ii. 1 5. 4.

APPIAN AND HIS HISTORY. 379

CHAPTER XX.

DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.

(149-146 B.C.)

Appian and his History — Polybius— -Characteristics of his History —
His love of truth — Topography of Carthage — Causes of its obscurity
— Changes made by Nature — Changes made by Man — The penin-
sula and the isthmus — ^The fortifications and triple wall — ^The
Taenia — The harbours — Resolve of Rome respecting Carthage —
Treachery of Romans — Scene at Utica — Scene at Carthage — ^The
Roman attack fails — Repeated failures and losses — Scipio ^Emilianus
— His character and connections — He takes the Megara — Siege
of the city proper — Scipio's mole and the new outlet — Contradictions
in Carthaginian character — Scipio attacks the harbour quarter —
He takes Nepheris — The final assault — The three streets — The
Byrsa— Fate of the city and its inhabitants — Curse of Scipio —
Unique character of the fall of Carthage — Its consequences — Sub-
sequent cities on its site — Final destruction by the Arabs.

Our knowledge of the Third Punic War is derived
almost exclusively from Appian, a mere compiler
who did not live till the time of the Emperor Ha-
drian, and whose accuracy, where he draws upon his
own resources, may be judged from the fact that he
places Saguntum to the north of the Ebro, and makes
Britain only half a day's sail from Spain.^ For-
tunately for us, however, there is good reason to be-
lieve that his account of the fall of Carthage is drawn

* Appian, Hisp. i and 7.

38o CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

directly from Polybius, who not only stands in the
highest rank as an historian, but was himself present
and bore a part in the scenes which he described.*
Lord Bacon has remarked in one of his aphorisms,
that while the .stream of time has brought down float-
ing on its surface many works which are light and
valueless, those which were weightier and worthier
have too often sunk to the bottom and been lost to
us. Happily the aphorism is not wholly true, and in
this instance the lighter work of Appian has been
able, as it were, to give buoyancy to the substance of
the weighty work of Polybius. Let us dwell for a
moment on the qualifications of the man to whom
students of ancient history, especially of Carthaginian
history, owe so much.

Polybius was a Greek of Megalopolis, who having
been carried off to Italy, in common with all the more
enterprising and independent spirits among his coun-
trymen, by the Romans, was invited to take up his
residence in the house of ^milius Paullus, the con-
queror of Macedonia ; and it is to this happy accident
that we owe, if not his history itself, at all events, some
of its most distinguishing characteristics.

Here it was that Polybius learned to appreciate,
as perhaps no other Greek or Roman had hitherto
done, the grandeur alike of the Greek intellect and of
the Roman character, and was able to mark out, in his
own mind at least, the appropriate sphere and limits of
each. Here he influenced, and, in turn, he was influ-
enced by, some of the foremost minds which the Im-
perial State had yet produced — the young and virtuous

* Appian, Pun. 132.

POIYBIUS AND HIS HISTORY, 381

Scipio himself, his adopted father iEmilius PauUus,
the wise and gentle Laelius, the satirist Lucilius, the
African comedian Terence, and the Greek philosopher
Panaetius. Here he learned to rise alike above the
petty intrigues of the Achaean states and the narrow
patriotism of Rome to the conception of an universal
Empire, which was to combine intellectual culture
with material civilisation, and order with something
which was, at least, akin to national life. Here, lastly,
in his part of historian, he cut himself adrift from the
dry annals and the meagre epitomes which still, to a
great extent, monopolised the name of history, and rose
to that higher conception which Thucydides alone of
his predecessors had apprehended — the conception of
history (or, at all events, the history of the Mediter-
ranean states), as a living whole, in which, when the
due distinction had been drawn between the ephe-
meral and the lasting, the superficial and the essential,
each successive phase of society, however complicated,
may be shown by adequate links of cause and effect,
to be the resultant of that which has preceded it.

'Truth,' says Polybius himself, in a well-known
passage, * is the eye of history ; for as a living thing
when deprived of sight becomes useless, so if truth be
taken from history what remains is only an idle tale.' ^
From the position here taken up he never consciously
swerved. If he was unduly influenced by the views
prevalent in the Scipionic circle, much allowance must
be made for the haze through which he saw, and
could not help seeing, the exploits of his patron's
family. But what history has gained from him and his

' Cf. Polyb. viii. 10. 7-9.

382 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

surroundings is so great that we need not quarrel with
the small price which has been paid for it. Through
the influence of the Scipionic circle, Polybius was able
to get access to documents which otherwise would
have been closed to him. He was able to study men
as well as things, and those the men who were play-
ing the most decisive part in the history of their time.
It is to the strength of the friendship which sprang up
between him and his patron's adopted son, the younger
Scipio, that we owe the one tolerably clear description
we possess of Carthage itself, and our one history
of the Third Punic War. He had only recently
returned to his native country after his seventeen
years' exile ; but when he heard that his friend was
appointed to the supreme command, he left it again,
in order that he might witness and record that friend's
exploits.

Here perhaps, before we look upon the last scene
of all, will be the place to describe, as clearly as
we can, the position, the fortifications, and the ap-
pearance of the imperial city. We noticed, at the
outset, the strange obscurity which hangs over the
origin, the rise, and the internal life of a city whose
influence was, for centuries, so wide-spread and so
commanding. The same obscurity unfortunately ex-
tends also to its topography. The blind forces of
Nature, and the ruthless hand of Man, have conspired
to efface even its ruins. It is not merely the identi-
fication in detail of its walls, its temples, and its
streets, for these might have been expected to dis-
appear ; but it is those more permanent features of
its citadel and its harbours, nay, it is the position of

TOPOGRAPHY OF CARTHAGE. '^^'^

the city itself, which is in some points open to dispute.
How this has come about requires explanation.

To the north of the city the tempests of two thou-
sand years, and the alluvial deposits of the river
Bagradas,\ which now enters the sea several miles to
the north of its former mouth, have turned much which,
in the palmy days of Carthage, was open sea into
dry land or into land-locked lagunes ; while along the
whole west and north front of the city the sea has
revenged itself by encroaching on the land, and the
massive substructions of fortifications which, perhaps,
turned Agathocles aside and long baffled even Scipio,
may still be seen engulfed beneath the waters at the
distance of a furlong or more from the present coast

Nor has Man been less destructive than Nature.
On the same or nearly the same spot have risen suc-
cessively a Phoenician, a Roman, a Vandal, and a
Byzantine capital. Each was destroyed in whole or
in part by that which was to take its place, and each
successive city found ample materials for its own rise
in the ruins which it had itself occasioned. The Byzan-
tine city was finally destroyed in 698 A.D. Since that
time its site has been almost uninhabited, and Berbers
and Bedouins, Fatimite Kalifs and Italian Republics,
German Emperors and French Kings, have all had a
share in the work of obliteration. The debris of so
many cities have formed a vast quarry out of which
neighbouring hamlets and towns have been built and
rebuilt, and, if we except the aqueducts and reservoirs,
which tell their own tale, even to the most cursory
observer, of its former population and prosperity, he

' Silius Italicus, Pun, vi. 140-144.

384 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

who would see any remains of the once imperial city,
must dig deep down through fathoms of crumbling
masonry, or through mosaic pavement laid above mo-
saic pavement, sometimes three in number, till, per-
chance, he lights upon a votive tablet covered with
Punic characters and scored with rude figures of a
triangle and an uplifted hand, or, it may be, with the
two horns of the Moon Goddess, Astarte ; or brings
to view the basement of the mighty temple which
witnessed the bloody offerings to Baal-Moloch.

Having said thus much on the difficulties of the
subject, we may proceed, with such help as is given us
by the fragmentary notices of the ancients, and by re-
cent investigations upon the spot, to indicate the main
features of the city. In a work of this size, we can,
of course, only give the results and not the process
by which we have arrived at them; still less can we
indicate all the elements of doubt which may be used
to support or overthrow this or that theory of rival
antiquarians.

The isthmus connecting the peninsula on which
Carthage was built with the mainland was three
miles across, and the whole of the widening ground
to the east of it, embracing a circuit of about
twenty-three miles,^ would seem, at one time, to have
been covered by the city proper, its suburbs, its gar-
dens, and its burying-ground. The peninsula ter-
minates towards the north and east in two bluff
headlands, now called Cape Ghamart and Cape Car-
thage. Whether these were included in the city

' Polybius, i. 73. 4-5 ; Livy, Epit. li. ; Strabo, xvii, 3. 15 ;
Appian, Piin, 95. 119. (See above, p. 10.)

THE TRIPLE WALL OF CARTHAGE. 385

fortifications, or were left to defend themselves as
outlying forts by their own inherent strength, is not
quite clear.

The city proper was adequately defended on the
three sides which touched the water by ordinary sea-
walls ; but on the side towards the land, the side
from which alone the mistress of the seas and islands
could dream of serious danger, ran a triple line of forti-
fications, of which the remains have only very recently
been brought to light.^ The outer wall, which would
have to bear the brunt of an attack, was six or seven
feet thick and forty-five feet high, and it was flanked
throughout its length by towers at equal distances of
two hundred feet. Between this and the two similar
walls which rose behind it, and somehow forming part
of them, so as to make the whole one compact mass of
masonry, were casemates capable of containing three
hundred elephants, with their vast stores of food.
Above these rose another story with stabling for four
thousand horses. In close proximity there were bar-
racks for their riders, as well as for twenty thousand
infantry.2 These magnificent fortifications ran up from
near the Lake of Tunis to the hill on which the
citadel was built, and here were dovetailed into the
wall of the citadel itself,^ but, it would seem, were
not continued on the same scale to the sea to the
north of it. The nature of the ground appears to

^ Beul^, FouUles h Carthage^ iii. and iv.

' Appian, Pun, 95 ; Strabo xvii. 3. 14. Cf. Appian, Pun. 88 ;
Diod. Sic. xxxii. Frag. p. 522.

' Cf. Orosius, iii. 22, ' ex und parte murus communis erat urbis et
Byrsae.*

C C

386 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

have made the prolongation of such elaborate de-
fences unnecessary, and the only point which was
really weak in the whole line of defence was the bit
of wall at the south angle of the town, just where
a narrow tongue of land, called the Taenia, which
plays an important part in the siege, cut off the
open gulf from the lake which lay within it. This
spot, lying as it were between land and water, was
especially open to attacks from both, but seems never
to have been sufficiently protected against either.*

Besides the Lake of Tunis there were two land-
locked docks or harbours, opening the one into
the other, and both, it would seem, the work of
human hands. Hie partus alii effodiunty says Virgil,
and in this instance, at least, he speaks historical
truth. The outer harbour was rectangular, about
fourteen hundred feet long and eleven hundred broad,
and was appropriated to merchant vessels ; the inner
was circular like a drinking cup, whence it was called
the Cothon, and was reserved for ships of war. It could
not be approached except through the merchant har-
bour, and the entrance to this last was only seventy
feet wide, and could be closed at anytime by chains.*
The war harbour was entirely surrounded by quays,
containing separate docks for 220 ships. In front of
each dock were two Ionic pillars of marble, so that the

* Appian, Pun. 95, ad fin.

' In the times of the Vandals the word * Cothon ' is unknown, and
that of * Mandracium ' has taken its place ; Procopius, Bei. Vandal.
i. 19 and 20, shows that it could be closed then, as in the Carthaginian
times, by a chain : KoiX ol Kapxv^^^^oi rds ffi^iipas iLXvfffls rov \tfi4yos tr
nil Mav^pdKiov KoXova'tv itf>€X.6fjLfvott tlffinfir^ r^ <rT6\^ 4irolovy^ The
Lake of Tunis was then called the Stagnum ; Proc. loc. cit.

i

PLAN OF HARBOURS AT CARTHAGE.

:

THE HARBOURS OF CARTHAGE. 387

whole must have presented the appearance of a
splendid circular colonnade. Right in the centre of
the harbour was an island, the head-quarters of the
admiral. Here he could superintend all the opera-
tions of that thriving and industrious population ;
here his orders were proclaimed by the voice of the
trumpet, and from its most elevated point he could
see over the intervening strip of land, and keep him-
self informed of all that was going on in the open sea
beyond. In time of war, he could view a hostile fleet
approaching and watch all its movements, while
the enemy could know nothing of what was being done
inside.* We have no full description of the merchants*
harbour ; but in time of peace the spacious Lake of
Tunis, which was much deeper then than now, would
afford safe anchorage to the myriads of merchant ves-
sels which no artificial harbour could contain, and
which, sweeping the whole of the Western Mediter-
ranean, were not afraid in very early times to tempt
the dangers of even the -Ocean beyond. Such was the
general aspect and position of the city whose last
struggle we have now to relate. That struggle was
heroic, desperate, and superhuman, but the conclusion
was foregone ; and he who has gazed on the free and
the imperial, may well be excused from dwelling at
length on the agonies of the doomed city.

The resolution of Rome was taken. The question
of time was the only one that remained, and the straits
to which Carthage had been already reduced by Massi-

* Appian, Pun. 96 ; Strabo, xvii. 3. 14, {ntovLuvrcn l\ if iiKpoT6\u
0I T€ \ifiives Kol 6 K(^0«y, vrialov ircpt^epis, €hplir(p vepifx^f-fyov^ Kxovri
veooffoiKous iKaripwBtv K^KXtp,

C C 2

388 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

nissa, demonstraftd to the few dissentients alike the
guilt of the city and the fitness of the present moment
In vain did P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, a man worthy of
his name, protest against the idea that it was neces-
sary, in order that Rome might be strong, that her
rival must be destroyed ; and point out what a use-
ful check upon the growing tide of luxury and cor-
ruption the bare existence of her ancient foe might
prove.* In vain did the Carthaginians condemn Has-
drubal and Carthalo, the leaders of the patriotic
party, to death. In vain did they send embassy after
embassy to Rome, proffering the amplest compensa-
tion and the most unlimited submission. The Ro-
mans replied that they wanted only * satisfaction ; '
to the natural question as to what * satisfaction *
meant, they rejoined* that the Carthaginians knew
that best themselves.^ Just then too the rats began
to leave the sinking vessel ; for there arrived an em-
bassy from Utica, the mother-city of Carthage herself,
surrendering the city absolutely to the Romans. This
was just what the Romans wanted, for it gave them
an unimpeded landing, and a second base of opera-
tions in Africa, only ten miles from Carthage. An
armament of eighty thousand men had already been
raised, and it was at once despatched under the Con-
suls, Manilius and Censorinus, to Lilybaeum, on its
way to Africa. War was thus declared and begun on
the very same day.^

* Livy, Epit. xlviii. and xlix. ; Diod. xxxiv. Frag, n ; Appian
Pun. 69 ; Plutarch, Cato, 27.

* Polybius, xxxvi. I, 2 ; Appian, Pun. 74; Fionas, ii. 15. 5 ; Zo-
naras, ix. 26. ■ Appian, Pun, 75,

* PERFIDIA PLUSQUAM PUNICA: 389

To a final embassy which, even after this, was
sent to Rome, and was instructed to avert the inva-
sion by any and by every means, the Romans replied,
that the Carthaginians had now at length done well,
and that Rome would guarantee to Carthage ' her
territory, her sacred rites, her tombs, her liberty, and
her possessions/ if three hundred hostages, drawn from
the noblest families, were delivered to the consuls at
Lilybaeum within thirty days.^ Long before the thirty
days were out the demand was complied with, by the
obsequious zeal of the Carthaginians, who were then
told that the further demands of the Romans would
be made known in Africa. This secured the Romans
from all opposition in crossing or in landing ; and
when the ambassadors again presented themselves in
Utica, they were told that as Carthage was hence-
forward to be under the protection of Rome, they
would need no other protection at all. All arms
and all engines of war were therefore to be given up«
After some remonstrances, this demand too was com-
plied with, and long lines of waggons brought to the
consuls two thousand catapults and two hundred
thousand stands of arms. Then Censorinus rose, and
all possibility of resistance having, as he thought,
been taken away, revealed the final orders of Rome
— the orders which, it must be remembered, had
been secretly committed to him and his brother-
consul from the very beginning — that Carthage was
to be destroyed, but that the citizens might build a

* The exact words have fortunately been preserved in a fragment of
Diodorus, xxxii. Frag. 5, and demonstrate beyond a doubt the * perfidia
plusquam Punica ' of the Romans ; cf. Polyb. xxxvi. 2. 4.

390 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

new city in any part of their territory they pleased,
provided only it was ten miles from the coast.*

The Consul was interrupted in the few words he
had to say, by an outburst of grief and indignation
on the part of the assembled senators and ambassa-
dors. They beat their breasts, they tore their hair
and clothes, they threw themselves on the ground in
their agony. The Romans were prepared for this,
and kindly allowed their grief to have its way. When
the first outburst was over, and the ambassadors
found that all their appeals to the treaty and to the
recent understanding with Rome were alike unavail-
ing, they begged, in the extremity of their distress,
that the Roman fleet might appear before the walls
of Carthage at the same time with themselves ; a
step which they deemed would make resistance seem
doubly hopeless, and would save the lives which, in the
paroxysm of their fury, the inhabitants would other-
wise be likely to throw away. Many of them, even so,
were afraid to face the reception which awaited them
in the city, and remained behind in the Roman camp.
Those who had the courage to bear the fatal message
gave no answer to the citizens who thronged out to
meet them as they neared the city walls ; but, keep-
ing their eyes on the ground, made their way, as best
they could, in imminent danger of their lives, to the
council chamber.^

The cry which burst from the assembled senators,
when they learned the Roman ultimatum, was taken
up by the multitude outside ; and then was seen a

* Appian, Pun, 76-81 ; Flonis, ii. 15. 5-8.

• Polybius, xxxvi. 4. $. 1-5 ; Appian, Pun, 81-91.

SCENE AT CARTHAGE. 391

sublime outburst of frenzy and despair, to which
history affords no parallel. The multitude wreaked
their fury on the senators who had counselled subr
mission, on the ambassadors who had brought back
the message, on the gods who had forsaken them.
All the Italians found within the walls were put to
death with torture. There was a rush of the infuriated
citizens to the armoury ; but they found there only the
empty stands, which a few days before had been
laden with arms. They adjourned to the harbour,
but the docks were empty; there were only vast sup-
plies of timber there, which, but for their blind fidelity
to the very treaty which the Romans had set at nought,
might ere now have been converted into ships-of-war.
They called by name on the elephants whose horse-
shoe stalls still stood beneath the shelter of the huge
triple wall, and whose deeds of prowess in the last
war were still remembered, but alas ! were matters of
remembrance only. The matrons whose sons had
been taken to serve as hostages rushed about like
furies, upbraiding the magistrates who had disregarded
their remonstrances, and .the gods who could look on
unmoved at their grief. Meanwhile the Senate, or
what remained of it, declared war; the gates were
closed ; stones were carried to the walls ; all the
slaves in the city were set free ; messages were sent to
the outlawed Hasdrubal, who was at large at the head
of twenty thousand men, begging him to forgive and
forget, and to save the city, which, in his just indig-
nation, he was even then preparing to attack. A
second Hasdrubal, the grandson of Massinissa, was
made commander-in-chief ; and while leave was being

392 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

- -

humbly asked, and refused, to send once more to
Rome, before the irrevocable deed was done, the
whole city was turned into one vast workshop. Its
buildings — public and private, sacred and profane
alike — resounded with the workman's hammer and
anvil. Lead was stripped off from the roofs and iron
torn out of the walls. Men and women worked day
and night, taking neither rest nor sleep ; the matrons
cut off their long hair and twisted it into ropes for the
catapults ; and while the Romans were hesitating,
partly perhaps from pity to their victims, partly from
the belief that a few days would demonstrate even to
these frenzied Phoenicians the hopelessness of resist-
ance, arms were extemporised for an adequate
number of the citizens, and the city was somehow
put into a position to stand a siege.*

When at last the executioners approached to re-
ceive its submission, they found, to their surprise, that
the gates were closed, and that the walls were fully
manned and armed with all the engines of war. There
was nothing for it but to try force. But force they tried
in vain. Manilius attacked the city on the land side
where it was strongest, for a wall and ditch ran right
across the isthmus from sea to sea ; ^ Censorinus from
the side of the Taenia, between land and water, where
it was weakest. To their dismay both attempts failed ;
and each had to go through the humiliating process of
fortifying his camp. Censorinus now proceeded to

' Appian, Pun. 91-94; Floras, ii. 15. 9-10; Zonaras, ix. 26.

' Appian, viii. 97 and 117 ; Dr. Davis and others place the triple
walls here ; and Strabo's t<Jxos tifpvxap'hs (loc. cit.) certainly agrees
better with this locality than with that near the B)n:sa.

FAILURES AND LOSSES OF ROMANS. 393

bring up wood and woodcutters from the other side of
the lake of Tunis, and filled in with stones and soil that
portion of it which lay behind the Taenia, so that he
might bring his battering rams to bear upon the weak-
est part of the wall. A portion of it fell beneath a
gigantic ram, propelled by 6,000 soldiers. But the
damage was partially repaired during the night, and
the besieging engines themselves were disabled by a
sudden sortie. On the following day the Romans
ventured through the part of the breach which was
still open ; but they were glad enough to make their
way out again under the protection of the young
Scipio, who was then serving in their army as a simple
military tribune.^ With the rising of the dogstar pes-
tilence broke out in the ranks of the besiegers, and
when Censorinus transferred his ships from the fetid
waters of the lake to the open sea, they narrowly
escaped being destroyed by the Carthaginian fire-ships.
The year 149 drew towards its close, and when
Censorinus returned to Rome to hold the elections for
the ensuing year, he had no progress to report. Ope-
rations were not suspended during the winter, and
once and again, if our authorities are to be trusted,
it would have fared ill with the other consul if Scipio
had not come to the rescue.^ Hasdrubal and Himilco
Phameas, who were in command of the Carthaginian
army outside the city, showed themselves to be skilful
generals ; and Massinissa himself, not liking to see the
game taken out of his hands, when he thought it was
his own, declined to supply the Romans with the aid
which they asked. A rupture seemed imminent, but

' Appian, Pun. 97, 98 ; Zonaras, ix. 26. • Appian, Pun, 99-101.

394 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the wily old Numidian was spared the humiliation of
seeing what he looked upon as his predestined booty,
appropriated by the Romans. It must have been a
drop of consolation, the only drop of consolation in
the cup of misery which the Carthaginians had now
to drain, that neither the honest Roman Censor nor
the grasping Numidian king lived to see the deed for
which they had so long worked and plotted. Cato
and Massinissa died in the same year, after the de-
struction of Carthage had been finally resolved on,
but, thanks to the heroism of the inhabitants, before
it had been fully carried out*

The generals of the year 148, the Consul Calpur-
nius Piso and his legate Mancinus, were not more
successful and were less energetic even than their
predecessors. The siege of Carthage was practically
raised, and their term of office was frittered away in
aimless and desultory attacks upon smaller places —
such as Clypea and H ippo Zarytus — wherein success
could have done them little service, and defeat, which
was the more common result, entailed much discourage-
ment and disorganization.^

So things might have gone on for years, and the
Romans, by their unprovoked aggression, well deserved
that it should be so. But one man there was serving
in a humble capacity in the Roman army, whom his
exploits and his parentage, alike lineal and adoptive,
marked out even then from his professional superiors.
Even Cato, who was opposed on principle to his
family and his mode of life, had applied to him what

' Polyb. xxxvii. Frag. 3; Appian, Pun. 94, 105, 106; Zonaras, ix.27.
* Appian, Pun, 1 10 ; Zonaras, ix. 29.

SCIPIO jEmUANUS. 395

Homer says of the Seer Teiresias, amidst the airy
phantoms of the nether world, * He alone is flesh and
blood, the rest are fleeting shades/ ^

P. Cornelius Scipio was the youngest son of ^Emi-
Hus Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia. When quite
a youth he had fought by his father's side at Pydna,
and he was afterwards adopted into a still more illus^
trious family, that of the Scipios. Like his grandfather
by adoption, the great Africanus, he had early shown
a taste for other arts than that of war; and his fond-
ness for literature was cemented by the friendship which
he formed, while still a youth, with the more distin-
guished of the Achaean exiles, above all with the his-
torian Polybius. Not that he was, in any sense of the
word, as Polybius himself and his contemporaries ge-
nerally, not unnaturally, thought him, a man of genius.
He was inferior in all respects to his grandfather by
adoption, the elder Scipio. Yet his friendship with
the best men of his time was a pure and noble friend-
ship, and was worthy of being immortalised by the
song of Horace and by the De Amicitia of Cicero.
It was well for Rome that to a man so bom and
bred, and so richly endowed amidst the blunders
and the incapacity of his nominal superiors, the eyes
of the Roman soldiers, and the Roman citizens alike,
were now instinctively turning for safety. Three times
over, so it was said, during the absence of Censorinus,
by his address or valour, had Scipio saved the army
of the other consul, Manilius, from destruction. He
had even induced the ablest of the Carthaginian gene-
rals, Himilco Phameas, to cross over to the Romans

* Polyb. xxxvi. v. 5-6 ; Odyssey^ x. 495.

396 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

with 2,5CX) cavalry.^ But the most that he could do in
his capacity of mere military tribune, was to anticipate
or undo the j^lunders of his superiors ; and it seemed
more and more possible that Carthage might yet
weather the storm, when, fortunately for himself and
for Rome, Scipio left the army to stand for the iEdile-
ship. He was accompanied to the ship by the sol-
diers, who did not conceal their hope that he would
soon return as their commander-in-chief ; and as their
commander-in-chief he soon did return. Now as on
one or two other occasions in their history, notably
as when the elder Scipio had volunteered to take^he
command in Spain, the Romans, wedded though they
were to constitutional forms, saw that there was
something more important even than those forms, the
safety of the state itself; and in spite of his age, which
was still six years below the legal age, and of his
not having filled any other curule office, the young
Scipio was elected not to the ^Edileship, but to the
Consulship, with the implied understanding, as in the
case of the elder Scipio, that his command was not
to come to an end except with the end of the war.^

The new consul arrived in Africa at a critical
moment. He first rescued from imminent destruction
Mancinus, one of the outgoing generals, who had
allowed himself to be cut off from all supplies and re-
inforcements on a high cliff in the suburbs,^ and then
brought back the other army of the consul Piso, which
was still carrying on a make-believe warfare amidst the
inland towns, to its proper work, the siege of the capital.

* Appian, Pun. 102-104, 107-109 ; Zonaras, ix. 27.

* Appian, Pun. 109, H2.

■ Appian, Pun. 113-114; Zonaras, ix. 29. See below, pp. 420-42 1.

SCIPIO TAKES MEGARA. 397

Having restored discipline by clearing his camp of the
ineflfectives and of the birds of prey of various species
which had accumulated in it with amazing rapidity
during the exploits of the last two years, he managed
to take the vast suburbs of Megara by surprise, and
thus compelled Hasdrubal to abandon his open camp
and to take refuge in the Byrsa.^

The siege of the city proper now began in earnest,
and now also began, if we may believe our authorities,
a reign of terror for the unhappy Carthaginians who
were pent up within it. Having got rid of his name-
sake, the commander of the garrison, by false charges,
Hasdrubal installed himself as commander-in-chief.
But he proved to be as vain as he was cruel, and as
weak as he was pretentious.* His first act was to
bring all the Roman prisoners to the battlements, and,
after torturing them cruelly, to throw them over the
wall in sight of the Roman army. When expostula-
tions were addressed to him by some of the citizens,
he vented his rage on them in a similar manner.^

Scipio bridled his indignation, caring little if his
revenge were slow provided only it were sure. He
carried a double line of fortifications right across the
isthmus within a bowshot of the city walls, thus at once
protecting himself from a surprise and effectually cut-
ting off* the Carthaginians from all succour on the land
side. But the sea was still open to its own children,
and fearless blockade-runners kept entering the narrow
mouth of the merchant harbour right under the eyes of

^ Appian, Pun. 113-118 ; Zonaras, ix. 29.

* Polyb. xxxix. I-2, kcv($8o^os i^v koI hXa^i^v kqX iroXi> K€xo>pi<rfi(i'Qs
rrjs TparYfiariKris KaY ffrpwniyiK^s HuvdfXfas,

* Polyb. xxxix. 2. 6-13; Appian, J^n, 1 18.

398 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the Romans. Scipio therefore began to construct a
mole of huge stones, which, starting from the Taenia,
should block up for ever the mouth of the harbour.
This operation, if it was feasible, would make the sur-
render only a question of time. At first the Cartha-
ginians thought it was not feasible. But it progressed
rapidly, and in two months it was all but completed,
when, to the infinite surprise and chagrin of the Ro-
mans, a fleet of fifty triremes, hastily built of materials
which had been accumulated before the war began,
sailed out, as it were through dry land, into the open
sea, and that at a point where the waters were so deep
and the surf so angry that it was hopeless to think of
closing the exit by any further prolongation of the
mole.^

How so gigantic a work can have been accom-
plished — new ships built, and a new passage opened
— without even a suspicion being aroused in the minds
of the Romans as to what was going on, it is difficult
to say. Deserters, indeed, had reported that the work-
man's pickaxe and hammer were to be heard day and
night within the harbour quarter, which was itself
surrounded by a wall.* But the secret had been kept ;
and kept, it would seem, not merely from the Romans,
but from the mass of the citizens themselves. It is
another illustration of that suspicious shrewdness
which marked the policy of the ruling Carthaginian
oligarchy throughout its history — a shrewdness which
often, indeed, outwitted itself, but sometimes, as in
this supreme crisis of their fate, did good service, and
which explains in part what is otherwise so inex-

* Appian, Pun. I20, I2i. ^ Appian, Pun, 127.

THE MOLE AND NEW OUTLET. 399

plicable — that alternation of caution and of rashness,
of ebullient enthusiasm and of much-enduring patience,
of long-sighted prevision and of short-sighted laisseZ'^
f aire J of sordid selfishness and of sublime abnegation,
which baffles calculation and defies analysis, refusing
to be accounted for by any ordinary combination of
motives or to be tested by any of the received maxims
of morality. The Romans found that all their labour
had been thrown away; and if only the newly-fledged
vessels had joined battle with them at once, instead
of airing in childish but natural glee their untried
powers of flight in the open gulf, they must have sur-
prised and overpowered them. But this was not to
be ; and after an evolution or two, they returned into
the harbour by the narrow passage by which they had
left it. Three days after they sailed out again, and
this time they offered battle. But the Romans had
recovered from their dismay. The conflict was waged
on equal terms, and on returning at nightfall to their
harbour, the Carthaginian ships jostling against one
another at its narrow entrance, were exposed to the
attacks of the enemy and suffered much loss.*

Baffled in his attempt to block up the harbour by
sea, Scipio now attacked its fortifications by land from
the side of the Taenia and from the newly constructed
mole. A part of its walls fell ; but the Carthaginians,
wading or swimming through the water by night, made
an attack on the besieging lines, and then, suddenly
kindling the torches which they carried, withstood,
with the fury of maniacs or of wild beasts at bay, the
darts which were rained on their naked bodies till

* Appian, Pun, 123, 124.

400 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS:

they had effected their object, the destruction of the
engines by fire, and had scattered panic throughout
the Roman army. In the morning they repaired the
breach in the fortifications at their leisure, and raised
lofty towers along the harbour wall, to face the lines of
circumvallation and the mounds with which the
Romans were endeavouring to approach it.* So the
summer passed away and still Carthage stood.

During the winter months Scipio attacked Ne-
pheris, a town on the other side of the lake, the head-
quarters of a relieving army, and the place from
which provisions and supplies had been most system-
atically forwarded to the beleaguered Carthaginians
ever since the siege began. Laelius having received
the chief command of the expedition, took the large
fortified camp outside the town, and put to the sword
a mixed multitude of seventy thousand soldiers and
peasants. Soon afterwards the town itself fell into
Scipio's hands ; and all the isolated garrisons which
had hitherto remained tnje to Carthage, together with
the country which they commanded, submitted to
Rome. ^ And so one more winter passed away, and still
—without a foot of ground which she could now call
her own except that which her buildings covered, and
without a soldier or a citizen save those who were
penned within her walls — the grand old city held
bravely out.

But now her hour had come. At the beginning of
the spring Scipio delivered his final attack. He first
took by storm the quarter of the merchants' harbour *
then, with the help of a surprise planned and carried

> Appian, Pun, 124, 125. * Ibid. 126 ; cf. Strabo, xvii. 3. i6.

THE FINAL ASSAULT. 401

out by Laelius, the war harbour; and thence he passed
without opposition into the adjacent market-place.^

The city might now have been thought to be in
his hands. Three streets led up from the market-
place to the citadel, and the citadel alone, it might
have been anticipated, would now give any further
trouble. But those three streets meant six days of
fighting and of massacre. They were held by frenzied
and despairing Phoenicians, and were well adapted
for such a defence as frenzied and despairing Phoeni-
cians alone could make. They were narrow, and
above them rose houses six stories high with over-
hanging eaves ; and from these such darts and mis-
siles as came to hand would be hurled down in one
continuous shower on the advancing foe. From such
a downpour even the Romans shrank. They hesi-
tated for a moment ; but it was for a moment only.
Storming the first house to which they came, they
put its inhabitants to the sword, and then passing
step by step, and inch by inch, from building to build-
ing, or from roof-top to roof-top by planks laid across
the intervals, they massacred every living thing they
met. Each house was a castle, and a castle defended
by its garrison to the last extremity. The battle
raged on the house-tops, within the houses them*
selves, and in the streets below. Many of the in-
mates were hurled down from the windows or the
roofs and caught on the pikes of the assailants.

At last the citadel was reached and the fighting
was at an end. But the most piteous scene of all
was still to come. Scipio gave the order to fire the

* Appian, Pun, 127.
D D

402 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

streets which it had cost the Romans so much to
gain, to level the ruins, and so to open the approaches
to the Byrsa which still frowned in front It was a
natural order, and one which did not appear to imply
unnecessary cruelty or loss of life. But, unknown to
Scipio, a number of old men and women and children
had concealed themselves only too skilfully in the
cupboards or the cellars of the houses in which the
fighting had been going on, and these were now
burned alive, or fell with the falling buildings ; while
others, half-roasted or half-suffocated, flung them-
selves headlong from the windows into the streets.
There they lay, and thence they were shovelled, dead
and dying alike, amidst charred beams and crumbling
masonry, into any hollows which required filling up.
Heads or legs might be seen protruding from the
reeking and the smouldering mass till they were tram-
pled into nothing by the oncoming cavalry. This fear-
ful scene Polybius himself witnessed and recorded.^

The six days of the struggle and the massacre
were at last over. The Roman troops had frequently
relieved each other during its progress, but Scipio
had allowed himself to take no rest. He snatched his
food only in the intervals of giving orders, and he now
at last sat down on an * elevated place* to see what had
been done and what yet remained to do. The Byrsa
was not so much a citadel or any single building, as
that quarter of the city which was on the highest
ground and was most strongly fortified. Within that
quarter all who had escaped the starvation of the
siege, and the tyranny of Hasdrubal, and the sword
and fire of the Romans, were now huddled together ;

' Appian, /'wn. 127-129; Zonaras, ix. 30.

THE THREE STREETS AND THE BYRSA, 403

and on the following day a deputation came forth,
with suppliant branches and fillets taken from the
temple of ^Esculapius in their hands, begging Scipio
to^spare their lives. Their lives, but nothing else, the
conqueror spared them,and fifty thousand men, women,
and children came forth through the gate of the citadel.
The nine hundred deserters from the Romans remained
behind with Hasdrubal and his wife and children. For
them no mercy was either asked or granted. They
withdrew first from the sixty steps which led up to-
wards the citadel, to the level ground at the top ; thence
into the temple of iEsculapius itself, and thence, once
more, to its roof, determined to sell their lives as
dearly as possible. But there was one coward soul
even amongst them. Alone and trembling, Hasdru-
bal, the commander-in-chief, the murderer of his pre-
decessor, the man who had tortured and massacred the
Roman prisoners, who, if our reports speak true, had
starved the citizens while he himself feasted and drank
— the Marat and the Robespierre in one of the reign of
terror which he had established — crept forth in ^p-
pliant guise, and threw himself at Scipio*s feet beg-
ging for his dear life.^ It was contemptuously granted
him amidst the curses, loud and long, of the deserters
who were crowded together on the roof, and who saw

* Polybius, xxxix. 3 etseq. Ihne, History of Rome j iii. p. 365, ques-
tions the truth of the picture which Polybius has drawn of Hasdrubal.
But it is difficult to see the object of the Romans in inventing, if indeed
they did invent., such calumnies. The more incapable the Carthaginian
commander, the more amazing is the heroism of the Carthaginian re-
sistance, and the less the cause for boasting to the Romans when at
last they triumphed. The details of the story of Hasdrubal's wife are
certainly suspicious, if they are not altogether impossible.

D D 2

404 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

the dastardly deed. Worn out with fatigue they now •
set fire to the temple, and HasdrubaFs wife, arraying
herself, like her majestic compatriot Jezebel, in her best
attire, came forth, it is said, upon the roof with her two
sons, and after complimenting Scipio as a noble foe,
and heaping reproaches on her recreant husband, she
first slew her sons with the sword, and then flinging
herself and them together into the flames, died as
became, not indeed the wife of Hasdrubal, but as
became the wife of the last commander-in-chief of
Carthage and the last of the free Phoenician race.^

All resistance was now over, and Scipio was master
of a heap of smouldering ruins. But to him, at all
events, the victory did not seem, even in the exube-
rance of the moment, to be matter for unmixed con-
gratulation. He burst into tears, and was overheard
by his faithful friend Polybius repeating to himself in
ominous tones the words of Homer, * The day will
come when sacred Troy shall fall, and Priam and
Priam*s people too.*^ The work of butchery over, it
was time for that of plunder to begin. The gold
and silver and temple ornaments were reserved to
grace Scipio's triumph ; but the sculptures and the
paintings and other works of art which had been
stolen from the Sicilian cities were freely restored
to them ; an act of grace and moderation other-
wise unknown in the Roman annals, and, doubt-
less, due to the refined soul and Hellenic sympathies
of the general himself Many of these works of art
were unfortunately, as Cicero remarks, restored to the
Sicilians by Scipio only that they might be taken

* Polybius, xxxix. 3. I, 2 ; Appian, Pun, 1 30, 131.

2 Iliad, vi. 448-449 ; Polybius, xxxix. 3. 3-6 ; Appian, Pun. 132.

CARTHAGE RAZED TO THE GROUND. 405

from them by Verres ; ^ but for this the Roman people
at large are, happily, not responsible. The joy at
Rome when Scipio's galley, laden with the trophies
of his victory, arrived, was boundless ; and it was
some time before the citizens could fully realise the
fact that their ancient rival, the rival which had once
and again brought them to the brink of destruction,
was no more.^

Much of the city still remained standing, and it
was the wish of Scipio and of a small minority of the
noblest Romans that that part should still be spared.
But what had been granted even to the hated Capua
was denied to Carthage. The spirit of old Cato
seemed even from his tomb to rule the day, and the
orders of the Senate were peremptory that every
vestige of their hereditary foe was to be effaced.
When every building had been levelled with the
ground, the plough was driven over its remains, and
a solemn curse was pronounced by Scipio on anyone
who should attempt to rebuild the city, or even to
dwell upon its site. The rest of the inhabitants were,
with few exceptions, sold as slaves. The one Cartha-
ginian who, if the tales told of him are to be trusted,
was least worthy of his liberty and life, the mise-
rable Hasdrubal himself, was — perhaps, by an act of
cruel kindness on the part of the Romans — allowed to
retain them both, and after adorning Scipio's triumph,
to end his days in peace in Italy. Utica was re-
warded for her desertion by an addition to her terri-
tory ; while all the towns which had remained faithful
to Carthage were condemned to share her fate.^

Thus happened what, happily, has rarely happened

> Cicero, Verres^ iv. 33. * Appian, Pun, 133, 134. » Ibid. 135.

4o6 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

in history before or since. An ancient seat of civilisa*
tion, together with the race which inhabited it, its arts
and its sciences, its laws, its literature, and its religion,
was swept away at a single stroke, leaving hardly a
wrack behind ; and with it vanished the last rival
whom Rome had to fear, the one state which ever
met her on equal terms, and therefore alone stood
between her and universal empire ; the one possible
check upon the evils which the decay of the republi-
can spirit, the increase of wealth, the abuse of con-
quest, and the temptations of absolute power were
sure to bring in their train. It is a thrice melancholy
picture. It is the second book of the iEneid in stem
and simple fact. The g^eat Roman poet needed not
to draw upon his imagination for a single detail of his
splendid picture of the fall of Troy. The burning
and the slaughter, the crash of falling houses, the
obliteration of a wealthy and an ancient city which
had held imperial sway for many, nay, for seven
hundred years — it was all there, written in letters of
blood and fire, in the record of his own country's
most signal achievement! It was a loss not to be
replaced. The territory of Carthage, indeed, for the
century or two that the republic was yet to last, sup-
plied Rome with corn for her markets, and with wild
beasts and gladiators for her arena. It gave, in fact,
to the populace theii^ bread and their Circensian
games, all that when the republic had fallen they would
ever want, and all that they would ever have. A
poor equivalent this for the mighty city, the queen of
the Mediterranean and its islands, the explorer of the
Ocean beyond, the nurse of commerce and colonisa-

ATTEMPTS TO REHABILITATE CARTHAGE. 407

tion, the mother of Hamilcar Barca and Mago, of
Hasdrubal and Hannibal !

The curse of Scipio rested upon its site ; yet not
many years afterwards Caius Gracchus, unmindful or,
perhaps, resentful of it, and moved doubtless by the
noblest motives, proposed to relieve the wants of the
poorer Roman citizens by planting six thousand of
them on the spot. But African hyenas, it was said,
tore up and scattered the boundary marks which had
been laid down, thus demonstrating to the hostile
Senate alike the efficacy of the curse and the guilt
of the people's friend who had set it at nought. The
proposed colony of Junonia cost its originator his
noble life before he had done more for it than give
it its name. It was reserved for the greatest of the
Romans, for Julius Caesar himself, some forty years
after Caius Marius had so theatrically taken his seat
amidst its ruins, to revive the project of Caius
Gracchus. His death anticipated this, as it antici-
pated other cosmopolitan projects of his imperial and
ultra-Roman mind. But Augustus carried out with
filial reverence this and other provisions of his uncle's
will, only attempting, it is said, to evade the letter
of Scipio's curse by building his city not on but near
the site of the Phoenician city.^ He must have failed
in this, for, as we have seen, the whole of the penin-
sula had been more or less covered by the original
Carthage, its suburbs, its gardens, and its burial
ground. Anyhow the natural advantages of the spot

^ Appian, ix. 136. Pliny, however {Hist, Nat, v. 3), says that the
Roman city was built on the exact site of the Phoenician : * Colonia
Carthago magnse in vestigiis Carthaginis.*

4o8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

overcame the curse and soon made the new city the
capital of Northern Africa and the headquarters ah'ke
of Roman civilisation and of African Christianity.
After connecting itself with the great names of Augus-
tine and TertuUian and Cyprian — names and cha-
racters different indeed from those of their Phoenician
predecessors— and passing through the hands of the
Vandals, it fell under the sway of the new Rome,
and * shed or received a last ray of lustre ' from the
great name of Belisarius.

Finally, by a destiny stranger still, it was de-
stroyed by the Arabs, a race nearly akin to its first
founders. The hurricane of their invasion swept
away all that remained of the city, and though the
Arabs founded or devieloped at various times in other
parts of Africa rich commercial or literary capitals,
such as Cairo and Cairwin, Fez, Tangiers, and Mo-
rocco, they did nothing for Carthage. A straggling
village, indeed, sprang up later on its site and dragged
on a wretched existence for some centuries, and at the
present moipent, by another caprice of fortune, the
citadel of Carthage is occupied by a chapel dedicated
to a French crusader, king and saint in one. But
ever since the Arab chief Hassan gave, in a.d. 689,
the Byzantine city to the flames, the memorable
words in which the author of the ' Decline and Fall *
has described Palestine as it has been ever since the
Crusades, may, with at least equal truth, be applied to
Carthage : * A mournful and a solitary silence has pre-
vailed along the coast which had so long resounded
with the world's debate.'

A VISIT TO CARTHAGE, 409

CHAPTER XXL

CARTHAGE AS IT JS.

Interest of a visit to Carthage — Nature of impressions thence derived —
Its topography — First view disappointing — The Goletta and the
Taenia — Djebel Khawi and the Necropolis — Vicissitudes of its history
— Its treatment by the Romans — Sanctity of burying place among
Semitic races — Ras Sidi Bu Said and its sanctity — St. Louis a
Moslim saint — Scene of misadventure of Mancinus — His picture of
Carthage — Hill of St. Louis the ancient Byrsa — Description of
Byrsa — Gulf of Tunis and Peninsula of the Dakhla — Lake of Tunis
and Plain of Carthage — ^The Aqueduct, its character, history, and
appearance — Utica — Obliteration of Punic City — The * smaller
cisterns *— Are they Punic or Roman? — The larger cisterns — Debris
of four cities — Excavations of Dr. Davis — Excavations of M. Beule
— Remains of triple wall and traces of final conflagration — Catapult
bolts — Remains of ancient harbours — Buildings beneath the sea —
Oriental character of Tunis — Strange mixture of races — Streets of
Tunis— Sights of Tunis — The neighbourhood of Tunis — Patriarchal
life — Characteristics of the Arab — His unchangeableness — Conclu-
sion.

It was early on the morning of April i, 1877, that
we cast anchor off the Goletta, a tumble-down fort
which commands, or does not command, the narrow
entrance to the Lake of Tunis, and found ourselves in
full view of the bold promontory and the low coast-
line, the undulating hills and the fertile plain, which
mark the site of ancient Carthage. It was a moment
not easily to be forgotten, a moment into which the

I

410 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

interests of half a lifetime — of half my lifetime at all
events — seemed to be compressed. There was that
tumult of feelings, that mixture of satisfaction and of
unrest, of melancholy and of delight, of enthusiasm
and of disappointment, which it is, perhaps, not easy
adequately to explain, but which needs, I imagine, no
explanation at all to anyone who has seen for the
first time in his life a spot which has long filled a
large place in his imagination ; to the poet or the
scholar who has seen for the first time the Acropolis
of Athens ; to the historian who has at last set foot in
Rome ; to the pilgrim who, after traversing, perhaps
half a continent, amidst burning deserts or eternal
snows, has caught sight — his whole nature strung to the
highest pitch of tension — of some storied mountain or
some holy city, the goal of all his aspirations and his
passionate religious yearnings, Mount Sinai or Mount
Elburz, Kapalivastu or Benares, Mecca or Jerusalem.
It is more, perhaps, than he has hoped for, but it is
also less.

Qusesivit caelo lucem ingemuitque repert^.

In a work of this kind, anything in the shape of
a journal, even though it be a journal of a visit to the
city of which it treats, would be obviously out of
place. But it may not be out of place to gather up
within the compass of a single chapter some of the
impressions made upon my mind, by what I saw of
the site of Carthage, of its remains, and of its present
inhabitants. First impressions of a place, it has been
often said, may make up by their freshness for what
they lack in point of accuracy and completeness ; but

TOPOGRAPHY OF CARTHAGE. 4U

I am not sure that my own record can lay claim to
even this merit. If, in one sense, they are my first
impressions, in another they are my ultimate conclu-
sions ; and it may well be, therefore, that they may
lack the freshness of the one without possessing the
value or solidity of the other. Deep and varied
though the interests of my visit were, it seemed to me
throughout as though I was taking a last rather than
a first view of the site of the city, and was driving
home impressions which had been made long before
rather than forming new ones. Be that as it may, I
will endeavour to record some of them here, for what
they may be worth.

Everyone who has given even the most cursory
attention to the topography of Carthage knows what
diametrically opposite views have been held respect-
ing it ; and it was with a feeling of interest not un-
mixed with anxiety, that I took that first glance at
the general outline of the place, which, if it proves
nothing at all, may yet seem ominous or suggestive of
the result. It might well be that on a personal in-
spection of the spot I might come to conclusions very
different from those which I had drawn from books
and maps, and which had hitherto seemed to har-
monise best with the history of the final siege. I
might be driven by the evidence of my own eyes to
agree with those who put the Byrsa where I had ima-
gined the Megara, and the Megara where I had
imagined the Byrsa, and transfer the harbours, the
Taenia, the Forum, and all the thrilling operations of
which they were the scene, from the south to the
north of the city. Turn labor effusus : much at least

412 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

of my labour would have been thrown away, and it
would only have remained for me to beat a retreat
while it was still possible, and to make my views bend
to the facts, since the facts would not bend to them.
The critical moment came and it passed. Feeling
that I could not be an altogether disinterested witness
in the matter, I believe I put considerable strain upon
myself to see if I could fall in with the views ex-
pressed by Dr. Davis, the energetic excavator and
explorer, as regards the position of the Byrsa, and the
triple wall, and of Ritter or Mannert, as regards the
position of the ports.^ But I came to the conclusion
that, on these particular points, the balance of the
evidence lay strongly in other directions, and that the
inferences on which I had based my account of Car-
thage were, on the whole, correct

But if the first view of the place, as seen from the
deck of a steamer, is so far satisfactory, it must be
admitted that in other respects it is somewhat dis-
appointing. There is nothing, at first sight, to delight
or to charm ; there are no bold outlines, nothing, in
fact, in the physical features of the spot to suggest the
mighty part which it played in ancient history. The

^ Dr. Davis places the B)nrsa on Burj-Jedeed, a hill near the sea,
considerably to the S.E. of the hill of St.Xouis, while he throws back
the triple walls to the isthmus behind the Megara. Ritter identifies
the Byrsa with Djebel Khawi or the Catacomb Hill on the N. W. of the
city, and necessarily therefore also places the Taenia and the artificial
harbours in the same locality on the ground now occupied by the Salt
Marsh. Mannert places the harbours much in the position which I
have indicated in the accompan3dng plan of Carthage, but conceives the
entrance to them and therefore also Scipio's Mole to have been inside
the Taenia ; that is, not in the open gulf, but in the Lake of Tunis.

FIRST VIEW OF CARTHAGE. 413

Byrsa is an ordinary-looking hill, scarped, it is true,
in some portions, but anything but commanding in
itself. There is no frowning rock — such as you cannot
help picturing to yourself beforehand — like the Acro-
polis or the Acro-Corinthus, like Edinburgh or Stir-
ling Castle; nothing, in fact, which could put to.
shame even the supposed Tarpeian rock at Rome.
Rough grass, acres of beans and barley, and ploughed
fields do not delight the eye ; they are not naturally
suggestive of anything beyond themselves ; moreover
the whole thing lies, or appears to lie, within so small a
compass. There does not seem room at first sight
for the vast operations of the siege, for the myriad
merchantmen and ships of war, for the teeming popu-
lation who, we are told, and truly told, throve and
trafficked here for centuries. A partial explanation
of this, no doubt, lies in the fact that the distances
are altogether foreshortened, and it is not till you
begin to walk over the ground from the Goletta to
the Byrsa, from the Byrsa to Cape Carthage, from
Cape Carthage to the Necropolis, and so round the
whole circuit of twenty-three miles, that the first im-
pression of want of space and want of dignity is even
partially removed.

Let me now, without attempting to adhere to
any definite order of place or time, say a word or
two on some of the spots which interested me most.
I had felt somewhat sceptical beforehand as to the
existence of that extraordinarily shaped neck of land
which I had seen in the larger maps of Carthage, with
its tiny opening now called the Goletta or gullet. My
doubts on that score were set at rest at once, for, as I

I

414 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

have said, we dropped anchor off it, and were rowed
up the channel along which only a few boats could
pass abreast This was a good omen for what was to
follow, and by walldng some half-mile to the west-
ward along the narrow bar of sand which cuts off the
Lake of Tunis from the outer sea, we found ourselves
standing on the broadening ground whence Censo-
rinus, as I believe, delivered his first, and Scipio his last
attack on the doomed city. On one side of us was
the land which owed its very existence to the opera-
tions of the siege, for it must have been from this point
that Censorinus threw those vast masses of soil and
ballast into the lake which gave him standing room
for his forces, and so enabled him to bring his gigantic
battering rams to bear on the weak angle of the wall.
On the other side of the bar was the spot from near
to which Scipio must have begun to carry that cruel
mole which was to cut off from the beleaguered citi-
zens their last hope of relief from without.

To the extreme north-west of the ground once
occupied by the Phoenician city, is the promontory
of R^ Ghamart, 200 feet high, and the line of rounded
hills, called Djebel Khawi, which runs thence in a
southerly direction for the distance of a mile or so, is
* one vast Necropolis.' Everywhere, a few feet be-
neath the surface of the ground are labyrinths of low
vaulted chambers, often communicating with each
other or separated only by narrow walls of rock *
perhaps the quarries from which the Punic city was
originally hewn, certainly used afterwards as sepul-
chres for its dead. They are now, for the most part,
hidden from view or filled with rubbish ; and the wild

THE NECROPOLIS.^ 41S

fig-tree which, as the Roman poet remarked, was able
to cleave the costly marble sepulchres of Messala,
pushes its sturdy roots in every direction through
these humble tenements of the Phoenicians.

All traces of the original occupants have long
since disappeared, and the vacant space is often te-
nanted by the jackal and the hyena. ^ When the
Romans had exhausted their fury on the city of the
living, they turned their attention, as it would seem,
even to this city of the dead. It was their practice
not to bury but to burn their dead, and it is not likely
that they used at first the vast Necropolis which they
had rifled of its contents, for their own small cinerary
urns. But when the Roman Carthage became the
metropolis of Africa, and the head-quarters of African
Christianity, the Pagan practice of cremation was re-
placed by Christian burial, and the ancient mortuary
chambers were filled, after the lapse of centuries, by
new occupants. These, when the impetuous flood of
Arab invasion had spread over the country, were, in
their turn, dispossessed by marauding Bedouins. For
centuries the Bedouins have . ransacked them for any
treasures to be found within them, and they visit them
to this day for the chalk which they contain. Ac-
cordingly we are not surprised to hear that out of
some hundred sepulchres, examined by Dr. Davis and
M. Beul6, only one contained a skeleton. In another
was found a relic of even greater interest, though it
belongs to the Vandal or the Byzantine rather than the
Roman era, a representation on the rock of the seven-
branched candlestick.^ The seven-branched candle-

* Davis, Carthage^ p. 472. « Ibid. p. 486.

I

416 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

stick, carried off by Titus from Jerusalem to Rome,
was, in the strange vicissitudes of human fortune, car-
ried off again from Rome to Carthage by the terrible
Genseric, the lame Vandal king ; and so, probably, it
comes about that the sacred ornament of the Jewish
temple — the exact shape of which is known to all the
world from the sculptures on the arch of Titus — ^has
been found engraven also within a Phoenician sarco-
phagus at Carthage. Some of the sepulchral chambers
measure twelve by fifteen feet, and contain as many as
ten niches, or columbaria, hewn out of the solid lime-
stone as receptacles for the dead.^

With what deep pathos as one looks at Djebel
Khawi — its hill-sides riddled, as they are, with
myriads of Phoenician sepulchres — do the words of
the Carthaginian legate Banno come back to the
mind ! ' Kill,' replied he to the Roman consul who
cruelly ordered the now disarmed and helpless Car-
thaginians to destroy their beloved city and build
another ten miles from the coast, ' kill, if it be your
good pleasure, all the citizens, but spare the city,
spare the temples of the gods, spare the tombs of the
dead. The dead, at least, can do you no harm ; let
them receive the honours that are their due.' ^ xhe
appeal might have moved a heart of stone, but it
touched no chord in the breast of the Romans.

Deep in the sanctuary of the human heart, civil-
ised or uncivilised alike, lies the feeling of reverence
for the last resting-place of the individual, the family,
or the nation. For the tombs of their fathers, even

• See Beul^, Fouilles h Carthage^ p. 129 seq.^ and the plans of the
sepulchres in the Appendix. ^ Appian, viii. c. 84.

RAS SIDI BU SAID, 417

the Nomad Scythians told Darius, when he was
wearied out by his vain pursuit of an enemy, who
always fled before him and always eluded his grasp,
that they would stand and fight to the death. ^ But
nowhere, probably, does the feeling lie quite so
deep as in the hearts of the various branches of the
Semitic race. The voice of the Phoenician Banno is
the voice of human nature ; but in a more special sense
it is the voice which seems to speak to us in each
deed of heroism which marked the last agony of Car-
thage, and which does speak to us from each successive
page of the sacred literature of the Hebrews who are
next of kin to the Carthaginians. It is the voice of
the patriarch himself that we seem to hear : * Bury me
with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of
Machpelah which Abraham bought for a possession
of a burying place ; there they buried Abraham and
Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac and Re-
bekah his wife, and there I buried Leah.*

The other promontory which is included within
the circuit of the ancient city, Rds Sidi Bu Said, or,
as it is called in our maps, Cape Carthage, outtops Rds
Ghamart by a hundred feet. It is of red sandstone,
and is the most commanding eminence within the
precincts. It is crowned at present by an Arab
village of peculiar sanctity, so sacred that, as we were
told, no Christian is allowed to sleep there. The
venerable Sheikh of the village, however, courteously
allowed us to enter and to enjoy the superb view from
the summit. It is inhabited by a large number of
Marabouts or Muslim Saints, living and dead ; men

* See Stanley's Jewish Churchy vol. i. chap. 2. p. 24.

£ £

4i8 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIAN'S.

who, by their austerities, their theological learning, or
their charity, have earned a reputation for sanctity,
and have come to live where other saints have lived
before them, and to lay their bones in death by the
bones of those whose virtues they have emulated.

By a curious caprice of fortune, qr, may we not
rather say, by a theological Nemesis, the Saint
who is supposed to give to Sidi Bu Said its special
sanctity is no less a personage than St Louis of
France himself. The crusading king died in 1270
of a pestilence which broke out in his army near
Tunis, as he was on his way to Egypt. His heart
lies buried near Palermo, and his body rests in the
sanctuary of the French kings at St. Denis ; but his
virtues and his sanctity are still a living power on the
plains of Carthage. So widely were his virtues re-
cognised among those whom he came to exterminate,
that with true Muslim charity they believed, or wished
to believe, that he had died a good Muslim, and ' the
Village of the Saint ' is believed, even to this day, to
be blessed by his body, and by a special portion of
his spirit. It is a homage, even if an all-unwitting
homage, paid by his followers to the teaching of the
Prophet, who told them, what Muslim and Christian
have proved alike so apt to forget, that the God of
Muslims and Christians is one.^

It must have been near to this commanding
eminence, and above the remains of the ancient sea
gate which is still to be seen on the beach beneath,
that the incompetent legate, Mancinus, effected a land-
ing with a small force during the final siege, hoping

* Koran, Sura v. 73 : * Say unto the Christians their God and our
God is one,* and cf. Sura ii. 59 and v. 52, 53.

THE LEGATE MANCINUS. 419

to take the town by assault, and it was from this spot,
when entirely isolated, without a sufficiency of arms or
of provisions, that he was rescued from total destruo-
tion by the prompt succour of Scipio.

Scipio sent him off in disgrace to Rome, and we
can hardly believe, what we are gravely told by a
Roman writer, that he had the face to assert, in
virtue of his very brief and very uncomfortable occu-
pation of this one spot in the suburbs, that he had
been the first Roman to enter Carthage ; that he
caused pictures to be painted representing the city
and the various assaults made on it by the Romans
— in which his own, doubtless, bore a conspicuous
figure ; that he exhibited them in the Forum to all
comers with copious explanations ; and that he be-
came so popular thereby that, to the extreme disgust
of Scipio, he was elected consul for the year which
"followed the fall of Carthage.^ We can share Scipio's
disgust ; but we feel as we stand upon the spot and
look upon the red sandstone cliffs, the straggling
cactus hedges, and the bare hill-sides, with perhaps a
sedate Arab or two picturesquely grouped upon them,
that we could pardon the impudence of Mancinus, if
only one of those pictures had been preserved to us,
or had been so described by any one of the eager
multitude who thronged to look at them, as to enable
us better to reclothe in our imagination the landscape
with the walls and the towers, the palaces and the
gardens, of the mighty city which must have lain full
within his view.

* Pliny, Atf/. Hist, xxxv. 4, 7. Cf. Cic. Lalius^ xxv. 96.

£ £ 2

420 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

From Sidi bu Said runs in a sooth-west direction,
parallel to the line of coast, and at a distance of
three-quarters of a mile from it, a broken line of hills
which terminates abruptly in that which, since its
purchase by the French and the erection of a small
chapel on its summit, bears also the name of St. Louis.
This hill, although it is in no way striking or pre-
cipitous, and although there are some difficulties con-
nected with the lai^e number of fifty thousand
soub said by Appian to have taken refuge within its
precincts, when the last hours of Carthage came, y^
unquestionably, dominates the plain, the harbours,
and the isthmus behind it, and there can be no reason-
able doubt that it formed the Byrsa or citadel of the
palmy days of Carthage. At all events, it was its
most commanding eminence.

It is at a moderate distance from the coast, as the
ancient citadels almost invariably were. It lies, as
Appian expresses it, * towards the isthmus ' * which
connected Carthage with the mainland, and, alone of
all the hills within the circumference of ancient Car-
thage, it answers to the description of Strabo, as
being ' a brow sufficiently steep lying in the middle
of the city, with houses on all sides of it.' * On this
spot stood the famous temple of Esmun or -/Escula-
pius. Under its protection the infant settlement grew
up to maturity and to empire ; against its fortifications
discontented mercenaries and hostile Libyans, Sicilian
Greeks, and Roman generals spent their strength, for
centuries, in vain, and on its summit the last scene of
the sad tragedy, the heroic death of Hasdrubal's wife,

* Appian, viii. 95, hrX rod ahx^vos, « xx. 9.

VIE IV FROM THE BYRSA. 421

is said to have been enacted. The view from the
Byrsa is, therefore, one which, for its historical and
tragic interest, if not for its intrinsic beauty, has
few equals in the world. It may be well, therefore,
taking the Byrsa hill as our central standpoint, to
describe something of what we saw from thence or
from points in its immediate neighbourhood.

To the south and east, almost beneath one's feet,
is the broad and beautiful gulf of Tunis, stretching
away to the open Mediterranean between the far-
famed Promontories of Mercury and Apollo. Beyond
the gulf is the Peninsula of the Dakhla, whose majestic
mountains — Hammam-el-Enf, the most commanding
among them-^by their shape, their silence, and their
barrenness, recall what one has read of the * Alps
unclothed,* as they have been well described, of the
Peninsula of Mount Sinai. Hidden from view behind
the mountains at the end of this peninsula, and look-
ing straight across towards Sicily, of which, in pre-
historic times, it must have formed a part, is the
Promontory of Mercury, sometimes called also the
* Fair Promontory,' the point which, in times of peace,
was named by the proud and jealous republic as the
ne plus ultra of all foreign — especially of all Roman —
merchantmen, the point where Regulus halted his
ships of war, where the greater Scipio first landed,
and from which, with characteristic adroitness, he
drew his first omen of success.

To the west and north is a sandy plain, flanked
by the Lake of Tunis, with its flamingo-haunted
waters, and by the ancient city, whose glaring houses
and whitened roof-tops, relieved a little by its Moorish
mosques and minarets, still recall the name of 'the

422 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

white/ given to Tunb by Diodonis Siculus eighteen
centuries ago.^ The plain is dotted here and there
by houses of the wealthy Tunisians, by olive planta-
tions, by one or two solitary palm trees, and by huge
hedges of the Barbary fig, whose sharp fleshy leaves
afford sure protection against every animal except the
cameL Part of it is under cultivation, and yicdds to
its cultivators — ^if those who just scratch the surface
of the earth may be so called — no longer, indeed, Xht
hundred-and-fifty fold of Pliny^s time ; * but still in
ordinary years a large return. Large tracts of country
which we know were, till very lately, covered with
forests, are now entirely bare. Trees are cut down
but new ones are never planted. Even the olive plan-
tations seem to be dying away for want of tending
or renewal. There is nothing, therefore, to help the
thirsty soil to retain even that modicum of rain from
heaven which falls upon it, while scientific irrigation .
with the help of the rivers, which was carried to such
a wonderful pitch in ancient times alike by the Phoe-
nicians and by the Romans, is now entirely neglected.
What wonder, then, if in seasons of exceptional
drought Nature revenges herself and that the crops,
having no deep root, wither away, while the inhabi-
tants perish by hundreds ? The cultivated portions
of the plain, at certain times of the year, swarm with
quails, vast numbers of which are snared in nets by

* XX. 9.

* Pliny, Hist, Nat, xvii. 3, cf. v. 3. Sir Richard Wood,, K.C.M.G.
Her Majesty's Consul-General at Tunis, to whose hospitality and
kindness as well as to that of his family we owe much of the success
and comfort of our stay there, told us of exceptional instances within his
knowledge in which even Pliny's estimate of the fertility of the soil
had been largely exceeded.

PLAIN OF CARTHAGE, 423

the natives or knocked down by sticks when they are
tired out — as was the case when we were there — by
their annual migration. Wandering over the pasture-
lands may be seen the flocks and herds of the Arabs
and the long lines of their camels. Here and there are
their black tents, which may be shifted at convenience.
But some of the natives, passing gradually from the
nomadic to the agricultural stage, have found a more
permanent, if not a more congenial abode, in the
numerous subterranean cisterns or magazines which the
forethought of their more civilised predecessors con-
structed ; and the domestic animals of the Arabs are
found stabling in the very buildings which may once,
perhaps, have sheltered the Carthaginian elephants.

Stretching right across the plain, * like the bleached
vertebrae of some gigantic serpent,' as they have been
well described by Sir Grenville Temple, may be seen
great blocks of masonry, the remains of the noble
Roman aqueduct,^ which brought from the mountains
of Zaghouan (Mons Zeugitanus) and Djebel Djougar
(Mons Zuccharus) — from a distance, that is, of over
sixty miles — those perennial streams of fresh water
which not only supplied the inhabitants of the city, but
sufficed to irrigate its suburbs and its gardens, and
made much even of the intervening arid country to
smile as the Garden of the Lord.^ It was the handi-

* Procopius, Bell, Van, ii. I, rbr hx^'rhv ^\^^^o.tov tvra ft$ ^s t^i
'k6\iv ctmryc t6 88«p. Perhaps even more * worthy of admiration ' it still
is in its decay and ruin.

* It has been calculated that the aqueduct conveyed seven millions
of gallons of water a day, or eighty-one gallons per second ! See Play-
fair's Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce ^ p. 131.

424 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

work of that Roman emperor who has left behind
him traces of his truly imperial passion for building
and for travelling in every province of his vast em-
pire. The aqueduct of Carthage is not unworthy,
either in the magnificence of its design or in the com-
pleteness of its execution, of the man who could rear
at Rome the mighty mass of buildings once called
* Hadrian's Pile,* and at Tivoli that museunn of art
-which is still known as his ' Villa ; ' who, at one end
of his dominions, could carry a wall from sea to sea,
from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway Firth, still
called Hadrian's Rampart, and at another could com-
plete the colossal temple of the Olympian Zeus, which
had been begun by Pisistratus seven centuries before,
and had waited seven centuries to find anyone who
had the means and the will to finish it.

The arches of the aqueduct which were once visible
from the Byrsa have been destroyed, not by the hand
of tin:;e, but by the barbarism of the inhabitants. The
basements alone remain, and we saw bands of Arabs
in the act of carrying away such blocks even of these
as their pickaxes could break off, to build a new
palace for the Bey of Tunis. Further away man has
been more merciful, or, at all events, less powerful to
injure, and its arches, rising to the height often of
sixty, and sometimes, it is said, of a hundred and
twenty-five feet,* march across the valleys from hill to
hill in stately procession. Those who are fond of
birds maybe interested to know that a large owl, of a
species which I had never seen before, was building its
nest on one of the highest of these arches, while on the

* Davis, i. 460.

THE AQUEDUCT OF CARTHAGE. 425

other side of the same arch a raven was dtting on its
young in undisturbed repose, and its mate flew croak-
ing round — a curious mixture of associations, orni-
thological and religious : the bird of Pallas and the
bird of Odin nestling together on what is doubtless
the handiwork of those master builders of antiquity,
the Roman worshippers of Jupiter and Juno, but
which supplied the wants of those who, after the lapse
of centuries of foreign conquest, still clung desperately
to their ancestral worship of Baal-Moloch and
Astarte ! ^ The channel which conveyed the water
from Zaghouan sometimes penetrates deep beneath
the ground, sometimes runs along the top of single
arches, or of tiers of them, one above the other. It is
broad enough and deep enough for a man to walk
upright within it, and in many parts it is still so
perfect as to be utilised for the water-supply which
modern enterprise has, within the last few years,
brought to Tunis from the same distant and perennial
fount.

Far away to the north of the plain we could see
the hill, on the top of which the citadel of Utica was
perched, the parent city and the one trusted ally of
Carthage, the point where the Romans so often landed
in their invasions of Africa, and whence they must

* The deep channels full of water mentioned by Appian as inter-
secting the Megara in every direction seem to necessitate an artificial
conduit from a distance even in the time of the Phoenician city : Appian,
viii. 117, r^ Miyapa .... Ix^toIs fia04<riv ZHarros ttoikiKois r€ Koi (tkoMois
Karait\it»v ^v. In like manner the description of the country round
Carthage given by Diodorus (xv. 8) as it appeared to the soldiers of
Agathocles, implies a vast system of tanks or cisterns, as well as scientific
irrigation : troAXwv d^drtav liiox^*wfi4vttv icoi wdvra riitow iLpMyrwv,

J

426 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

have caught the first glimpse of the city which they
had so perfidiously doomed to destruction.

But if the view from the Byrsa is impressive from
what it contains within it, how infinitely more im-
pressive is it from what it can only suggest ! It was
long, indeed, before we could fully realise, what we
knew well enough before we went there, that on the
ground immediately beneath our feet so many cities
— Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine — had been
founded, had risen to opulence and power, and had
vanished again, leaving barely a trace of their ex-
istence behind. A lively German, indeed, a resident in
Tunis, whom we met on board the steamer on our
way to Africa, could hardly suppress his surprise or his
merriment, perhaps even his contempt, when we told
him that we were actually coming all the way from
England to see Carthage. ' Carthage I dest rien ! *
he exclaimed ; and nothing, indeed, in one sense of
the word, there was ; but in another, and perhaps a
truer sense, how very much !

One trace, however, of the ancient city there is
which one would have thought that even our mat-
ter-of-fact German friend would hardly have called
' nothing.' About a quarter of a mile from the Byrsa
and nearer to the sea, is a huge mass of masonry
embedded in the soil, the low vaulted roofs of which,
rising side by side in pairs only a few feet above the
level of the hillside which has been excavated around
them and are actually below its level where it has
been undisturbed, look like the graves of some gi-
gantic prehistoric race. ' There were giants in the
earth in those days,' were the words which rose in-

OBLITERATION OF CARTHAGE, 427

voluntarily to the mind ; but these vaulted roofs
turned out to be the coverings of the vast reservoirs
which stored up water for the teeming population of
the city. They are eighteen in number ; the masonry
and cement are still all but perfect. Each reservoir is
nearly one hundred feet long by twenty wide, and the
water still stands in many of them to the depth of
seventeen feet. A narrow gallery, hollowed out of
the face of the hill beside them, enables the visitor to
pass beneath the surface along their whole length,
and to realise the silence and the solitude which reign
supreme around this, the one remaining monument of
the vanished ancient city.

I say advisedly of the ancient city, for though the
facings of the cisterns and perhaps nearly everything
which meets the eye may, very possibly, be Roman,
yet, as M. Beul^, one of the highest authorities on
ancient architecture, as well as an indefatigable ex-
cavator, has pointed out, the plan on which they are
constructed is undoubtedly more ancient, and the
Roman architects have only copied their Punic pre-
decessors. It seems likely, I would rather say, that
they have only repaired their work. If the aqueduct
is admitted to be Roman^ it will follow that a huge
collection of rain-water cisterns would have been an
absolute necessity in the Punic city. Nor is it easily
credible that the Romans would have taken the trou-
ble to destroy what lay deep hidden beneath the
ground. We have seen that they did not destroy the
Necropolis, they only pillaged and profaned it. Why
then should they have destroyed, at an infinite ex-
penditure of labour, the huge reservoirs which in that

428 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

arid country would be of untold value to the scattered
cultivators of the ground, or to their flocks and herds,
and which did not disturb that dead level to which it
was their pleasure and their practice to condemn alike
the house or the city of an offender ? ^ The low vaulted
roofs of the cisterns were probably then covered with
soil, to lower the temperature and to prevent evapora-
tion, and the Roman plough might therefore have well
been driven by the Roman destroyers almost inad-
vertently across them. M. Beul6 well points out,
moreover, that the definition which exactly hits off
the series of undoubtedly Punic fortifications which
he has disinterred beneath the Byrsa, hits oflT with
equal precision the range of cisterns themselves. Each
consists of a ' series of chambers equal and parallel,
and opening on a common corridor.' ^

Behind the Byrsa and beyond the precincts of the
ancient city proper, there is another group of cis-
terns of still larger proportions. These probably
belong to the Roman city, and they were fed not by
rain water but by the aqueduct of which they formed
the termination. They are called the ' large cisterns '
to distinguish them from the other group, which cer-
tainly could never be called * small ' except by com-
parison with them. They are said by the traveller Shaw
to have been in his time twenty in number, each mea-
suring not less than a hundred feet in length by thirty
in breadth. Gigantic as they are, they are not so
imposing either in associations or in appearance as the

* Cf. Livy, iv. 1 6, for the i^quimaelium orMzelian level ; the place
on which the house of Sp. Mselius, the presumed traitor, had stood.
2 Beule, Fouillesy p. 6i.

DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE. 429

smaller group which I have just described, partly be-
cause they do not lie so well together, and partly
because the deposits and accumulations of successive
ages have filled them to within a few feet of the
roof. Even so, they are of considerable value to
the inhabitants ; for, giving shelter as they do to a
whole settlement of Arabs with their wives and chil-
dren, their stores of grain, their agricultural imple-
ments, and their domestic animals — which are never
few in number— they form in themselves the whole
hamlet of Moalka, home and homestead in one !

All the other buildings of. the city, whether Punic
or Roman, have long since disappeared. Whole ham-
lets and towns have been built out of their materials.
We saw huge slabs of Carthaginian marble embedded
in the palaces of Tunisian nobles; and some have
found their way even into Italian and Spanish cathe-
drals. Innumerable small fragments, however, which
were not thought worth carrying away, still linger on
the site of the city. The ground beneath one's feet
teems with them ; nay, rather it is composed of them.
Bits of tessellated pavement, of porphyry, of the
famous Numidian marble — green, white, and red —
everywhere meet the eye, or are turned up by the
spade and the ploughshare. These belong, I believe,
almost exclusively to periods later than that of the
Phoenician city. The Romans did their work of de-
struction on their hated rival too thoroughly. For
seventeen days its ruins burned,* and at the end not
one stone was left standing on another, at all events
above the surface of the ground. The Manes of old

* Floras, ii. 17, 18.

430 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Cato must have been more than satisfied by the
way in which his countrymen carried out his grim
resolve.

The work of excavation has been attempted in re-
cent times, with such means as were at their disposal,
by Dr. Davis, an English, and by M. Beul6, a French
archaeologist, whose names I have already had occa-
sion to mention. Dr. Davis, in a series of explora-
tions, which he has carried on for many years, partly
at his own expense, and partly at that of the English
Government, has disinterred a large number of mar-
bles and mosaics, many of which, of course, belong to
the Roman period. But he has also opened out to
view the basement of a large temple to Baal, which,
if it is not Punic itself, is in all probability — as we
know the Romans in their new-bom enthusiasm for
the city of Dido and Venus made a point of doing —
built upon the exact site, and, as nearly as possible,
after the model of its Punic predecessor ; and, what
is more important still, he has discovered a very large
number, over 1 20, of genuine Punic inscriptions. That
some of the mosaic pavements also found by him
belong to the Phoenician city, we may not unreason-
ably conclude, when we are told that he has some-
times found three successive layers of mosaics placed
one above the other at considerable intervals ; that
the cement in which the lower stratum was laid was
of a wholly different character from those of the upper ;
that it was easily detached from the mosaics and was
very friable in itself, having lost all its adhesive power
by long lapse of time.^

M. Beuld, on the other hand, who is well known

' Davis, p. 202.

REMAINS OF ANCIENT WALLS, 43^

for his excavations in the Acropolis at Athens, ex-
pended much labour in sinking deep shafts, some of
which happily still remain open, at various points near
the circumference of the Byrsa, and he was fortunate
enough to bring to light considerable remains of
the great triple wall so accurately described by the
ancients.

There he came upon the foundation of the outer
wall, which, as we have already stated, was six feet
thick and forty-five feet high, strengthened by towers
at intervals which rose twenty feet higher still. There,
before his eyes, were the basements of the semi-
circular chambers— the shape so much affected by the
Phoenicians as we see in their remains at Malta and at
Gozo — which contained stabling for three hundred
elephants below, and for four thousand horses
above ; and there too, at the depth of fifty-six feet
below the present surface of the hill, he worked
his way through a layer of ashes five or six feet
thick, some of which still blackened the hand which
touched them, and were mixed with half-charred
pieces of wood, with small bits of iron twisted into
strange contortions by the fury of the Roman flames
which had attempted to consume them, with frag-
ments of pottery and glass — the invention of the
Tyrians — and with projectiles which must, all too
probably, have been collected together in the citadel
when the last assault was imminent, to be thrown
thence by the Balearic slingers, or to be launched
from the very catapults which had been equipped for
service by the free-will offerings of the long hair of the
frenzied Carthaginian matrons.^

» Beul^, p. 55.

432 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

Some of these remains are preserved in a small
museum near the chapel of St. Louis, and one of the
projectiles P^re Roger, the custodian of the chapel,
was kind enough to g^ve me, when he found that I
was specially interested in the history and topography
of Carthage. It is heavy for its size, and is made of
terra-cotta, that is to say, of clay which had been
moulded into an oval form, and then baked to a red
heat, exactly answering to the description g^ven by
Caesar of the acorn-shaped bolts used by the Romans,
and hence called ' acorns.* Ferventes fusili ex argillA
glandes,^ he says in his ' Gallic War,* and this is one of
precisely the same shape and material used by the
Phoenicians.

There is one feature of the ancient city which in
spite of all I had heard and read about it I was sur-
prised to find in such perfect preservation. It will
doubtless be remembered that ancient Carthage had
two docks or harbours, both the work of human
hands — one oblong for the use of merchant vessels,
the other circular for the use of vessels of war — and
our pleasure may be imagined when on suddenly
reaching the summit of the Byrsa from behind we saw
them both immediately below us, each, of course, much
diminished in size by the ever-shifting soil, and
by the debris of the buildings which had perished
around them, but each preserving its characteristic
shape. There, before our eyes, was the circular war-
harbour, once surrounded by 220 different docks, each
fronted by two Ionic marble pillars. There was still
the island in the middle, on which, in the days when

* Caesar, BelL Gall, v. 41.

REMAINS OF ANCIENT HARBOURS. 433

Carthage was the mistress of all known seas and-
islands, was the residence of her lord high admiral,
the spot from which he could superintend all the ope-
rations of that busy hive of industry, and could issue
his orders by the sound of the trumpet ; and there
was the intervening strip of land, narrower now than
then, owing to the encroachment of the waves, look-
ing across which — himself unobserved the while —
he could see all that went on in the open sea
and concert his measures against any state which
dared — and few ever dared — to measure her strength
against that of the Queen of the Ocean. And there,
too, was something — though I believe it is really
much more modern — which looked like the traces
of the outlet opened by the beleaguered Carthaginians
in the days of their distress, when they were thus
able, for the time at least, to laugh to scorn all the
labours of Scipo.

We bathed close to the supposed outlet. The water
was deliciously warm, early though it was in the
month of April, and as far out as we could swim,
we could rest once and again on the blocks of ma-
sonry which once formed the quays, or the sea wall,
or it may be even the buildings, of the Phoenician
city, but which are now encrusted by shell-fish and
seaweeds, and have long been covered by the waves.

It will readily be believed that the first and great
charm of a visit to Carthage is the religio loci, the
place itself, and the associations which cluster round
it ; but a second and hardly inferior attraction to my
mind, is the character of the people who inhabit the
plains where Carthage once was. Comparatively few

FF

434 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS,

travellers havq as yet visited the Cothon or the Byrsa.
Of tourists, in the ordinary sense of the word, there
are none ; and Tunis, I have reason to believe, is at
the present day the most Oriental of all Oriental
towns. The wave of Western civilisation or its counter-
feit, which has done so much to transform Constanti-
nople and Cairo, nay even Bagdad and Damascus,
has not yet swept over Tunis. A few shopkeepers,
indeed, and most of the voituriers are Italians, while
the boatmen and the porters who quarrel for the honour
of carrying your portmanteau, and nearly carry you
off in the process, are Maltese, who, it is said, do most
of the crime, and certainly seem to carry it in their
orbidding countenances. But beyond these outliers
of civilisation, and the few Europeans attached to the
consulates, there are no sights visible, and there is no
influence felt, but those of the East.

And what a mixture of Eastern races there is, and
what gorgeous costumes ! Grave and dignified Os-
manli Turks with their pride of race, their scarlet
fezes, and their yellow slippers ; Jews with their bag-
ging pantaloons, and their blue coats, and head-
dresses ; Arabs with their long beards, their white
turbans and burnouses, and their many-coloured tunics ;
descendants of the prophet, ' Grand Scherifs ' as they
arc called, rejoicing in their green robes and green
turbans — the size of which is not unusually exactly
proportioned to the degree of their sanctity and
their dirtiness ; swarthy Moors from the desert, and
Negroes from the Soudan — not such sickly and cring-
ing hybrids as you see in Oxford Street, clad in
European dress and aping European manncrs-^but

THE STREETS OF TUNIS. 435

real downright Negroes, half-naked, black as ebony ;
all jostling one against the other, and all rejoicing in
the brotherhood of Islam.

The streets of Tunis are narrow and unpaved, and
are often very dirty. The houses — as in their counter-
parts, the three narrow streets leading from the Forum
to the Byrsa in ancient Carthage — often all but meet
across them overhead, and few of them have any pre-
tensions to architectural beauty, yet, as you walk up
and down, you have endless and ever-varying subjects
of interest and amusement. Every man and woman
you meet, and still more every shop or stall you pass,
with its owner sitting in the middle of it cross-legged
and barefooted in dignified repose, waiting patiently
till it pleases Allah to send him a customer, is a study
in itself.

You seem to have the * Arabian Nights ' before your
very eyes. There, for instance, is the barber's shop
with a bench all round it, on which sit rows of
customers divested of their turbans and their fezes,
listening to the barber's chatter and each waiting
till his turn comes to have his head operated upon;
There is the Court where justice — Eastern justice, of
course, I mean — is administered by a Turkish Pasha,
who sometimes despatches the cases brought before
him at the rate of two a minute, but to the equal
satisfaction, as it would seem, of both plaintiff and
defendant. There is the prison, the doors of which are
never closed but guarded only by one shabby police-
man armed with a blunderbuss which looks as if it
would never go off, and a yataghan which is so rusty
that you would think it could never leave its scabbard ;

F F 2

436 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

the prisoners squatting complacently inside, smoking,
or knitting, or wrapped in contemplation, and all sub-
mitting quietly to their incarceration, because it, too,
is the will of Allah — or of the Bey. There is the
Arab coffee-house, where grave and sedate revellers sit
almost in the dark playing draughts and sipping
strong black coffee, of course without sugar and with-
out milk, from minute saucerless cups. There is the
College, founded by the Prime Minister Kheir-ed-
din — a Turk and a Pasha and yet a genuine reformer,
who is loved and honoured the whole country through ^
— where little boys learn to repeat by rote the Koran
from end to end at the top of their voices before
they understand a word of its meaning, while some
reverend MouUah sits in the midst of the circle and,
holding his wand of office, chastises them gently, not
if they are not quiet, but — oh ! what a paradise of
boys ! — if they do not make noise enough. The higher
classes, meanwhile, are answering questions in Euclid,
or arithmetic, or geography, describing by memory,
for instance, the sea passage from St. Petersburg to
Stamboul through the Cattegat, and the Skaggerack,
and all the rest of it, with a precision and a readiness
in which I am not quite sure that all, even in the
highest forms in English schools, would be able to
keep pace with them. There again are the mosques,
visited five times a day by throngs of worshippers,
who reverently put off their shoes before they enter
them, and into which Christians — since the European
element in Tunis is happily small and unaggressive,

* Sbe^Tiis book on * Necessary Reforms of Mussulman States:'
Athens, 1874.

SIGHTS OF TUNIS. 437

— rightly forbear to claim an entrance. There are
the minarets, from which, at stated intervals through-
out the day and night, and, above all, at daybreak,
comes that strange and beautiful call to prayer —
the very same which is heard from Sierra Leone to
Sumatra, and from Astrakan to Zanzibar — ^ Alldhu
AkbaTy Gqd is most great ; prayer is better than sleeps
prayer is better than sleep ; there is no God but Gody
and Mohammed is his prophet^ And there, once
more, are the caravanserais filled at evening with
groups of camels kneeling in a circle, their old-world
heads pointed inwards, sullenly crunching the heap of
green barley which their owners with characteristic
improvidence have gathered for them, and tended
all night long by some swarthy Arab squatting on
his haunches. All these and many more such sights
were crowded into the few days that we were enabled
to spend in Tunis and its neighbourhood.

And when you pass the city wall — for Tunis, it
must be made known to all, is a fortified city, and
possesses something which may by courtesy, indeed,
be called a wall, but which would, I verily believe, like
the walls of Jericho, tumble down, en masse^ at the bare
report of a heavy gun, — when you pass the gates and
find yourself in the country, what a delight, irrespec-
tive of the Roman remains which are so thickly strewn
over it, at Utica, for instance, and at Uthina, at Hippo
Zarytus and at Tysdrus, to see, not the Turk, or the
Moor, or the Negro, or the Jew, interesting though
each is in his way, but, what is still more interesting,
the genuine Bedouin of the desert.

There you have, not the 'Arabian Nights' but what

438 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

is better still, the Book of Genesis itself before your
eyes. There, for instance, is the gaunt figure of the
Arab against the clear horizon as from the hill-top,
wrapped in his white blanket, he stands like Joseph
or like Moses watching his flocks, or as he walks
magnificently — for who has a walk that can be named
with that of the Arab ? — over the plain. There is the
encampment of black tents, the very same in colour
and materials, in shape and in size, as that which
heard the laugh of Sarah, or witnessed the last long
sleep of Sisera. There is the venerable Sheik, the
Abraham of his tribe, with his long white beard, his
^rave courtesy, and his boundless hospitality ; there
his dark-eyed princess, with tattered garments per-
haps and bare feet, but richly decorated with glass
beads and amulets, with ear-rings, which hang not
through but round the ear, and with ankle-rings
which are often of silver and richly chased ; such
jewelry, doubtless, as struck the fancy of the grasping
Laban, and helped to win the heart of his sister to a
stranger in a far distant country. There, again, is a
young Rebekah, a damsel of olive complexion but of
strange beauty, going with her pitcher to the well.
Within the tent are stone jars of water of patriarchal
make and shape, curtains and coverlets of camel's
hair, churns for butter, kids* skins, and sheep skins,
while near its entrance is the rude circular stone oven
about the size of a basin, within which the scanty fuel
may be husbanded to the utmost and yet a cake may
be baked hastily and well for the tired wayfarer.
Round about the encampment roam the Bedouin's
wealth, the only wealth he possesses, his sheep and his

CHARACTER OF THE ARABS. 439

oxen, his goats and his dogs, his mules and his asses,
while here and there, crossing the plain, may be seen
those ships of the desert, the long line of his camels,
each one, perhaps, carrying a whole house and house-
hold on his back, each grunting and grumbling as he
shambles along, every line in his ungainly figure, and
every feature of his countenance, even his gentle eye,
looking like what it really is, a never-ceasing, but,
alas, a bootless protest againist the advance of civilisa-
tion.

And, then, what lavish hospitality you meet with
everywhere, what courtesy, what simplicity of heart
and life! On one occasion we stopped for a few
moments before a Bedouin encampment, and after
partaking of their simple fare, their milk and their
butter, from a dish which was not a lordly one, only
because they had none such in their possession, we
were about to depart when one of their number was
sent off to a point half a mile away, and returned
bringing on his shoulders a present which, it will be
believed, it was equally difficult for us to refuse or
accept — a live lamb. They would not take a refusal,
still less would they take any return for it

The Arab is, in a sense in which it can hardly be
said of any European nation, an inborn gentleman* If
he is not the noblest, he is yet, in my opinion, a truly
noble specimen of humanity. He is, and herein lies
one of his chief charms, as unchangeable as the deserts
in which he has his home. What he was in the time
of Abraham and Moses, that he was in the time of
Christ, and that, in spite of the vast religious impulse
given him by Mohammed, which carried him in one

440 CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS.

sweep of unbroken conquest over half the world, he
is, in all essentials, down to the present day. He is,
indeed, such a living bit of antiquity himself that we
are disposed to make rather more allowance for the
thoughtless way in which, unconscious of his past and
careless of his future, he destroys, and has for cen-
turies past destroyed, the remains of a less venerable
antiquity than his own which lie scattered so thickly
around him. But I must forbear to enter further
here upon the fascinating subject of the Arab; for
though he forms one of the chief attractions of a visit
to Carthage and its neighbourhood, I have treated of
him fully elsewhere, and his history and characteristics
lie beyond the proper scope and object of this volume.
It was a revelation, doubtless, to the Roman
senators that the splendid figs which Cato showed
them grew in a country only three days' sail from
Rome ; but I am inclined to think it was a greater
revelation to me that the remains of the great Im-
perial city, whose history had so long occupied my
thoughts, lay within six days* journey of England,
and that they could be enjoyed, if not to the full, at
least, I hope, to some good effect, within the narrow
limits of an Easter holiday.

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQl'ARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

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